Coral Gables High senior Ari Alcalay is a Big Brother through the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program.
Alcalay started as a Big Brother his sophomore year and visits his Little Brother once a week. He became interested in the program when one of his friends became a Big Brother.
“He got a kid and he told me about it and I thought it was cool,” Alcalay said. “Once I got into the program, they gave me a Little Brother I could mentor that went to my old elementary school.”
He helps his Little Brother with homework and talks to him about his education and keeping up his grade. His visits have helped the boy.
“He’s more talkative since I met him,” Alcalay said. “He was shy when I met him, but now we’re pretty close friends.”
Since starting in the program, the location of the mentoring sessions moved from Carver Elementary to the Boys and Girls Club because the Little Brother could no longer go to Carver. Alcalay said the program requires that the mentoring sessions take place in a school or after school program.
Last year, Alcalay initiated a program called Backpacks for Bimini.
“I started a drive and I collected around 300 backpacks,” he said. “I transported them to Bimini for the kids at the primary school.”
The backpacks were filled with school supplies such as folders, markers and journals. He collected the supplies late in the school year and took them to the island school over the summer.
He wanted to help the children of Bimini by donating school supplies because he has been visiting the island since he was a little boy. His sister collected books and started a library for the children of Bimini so he wanted to also help.
— Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
