January is National Mentoring Month, a great start to 2024 and an opportunity to give a young person a great start in life. 

On Veterans Day, we commemorate the service of members of the armed forces of the United States, past and present. But for some of those veterans, the call to serve persists long after they take off their uniforms for the last time and return to civilian life. 

Entering the eighth grade, it didn’t look likely that Logan would get a Big Brother. Big Brothers Big Sisters has a harder time matching older “Littles” than it does younger ones. But BBBS Haywood County lucked up when Dustin, a swim instructor and lifeguard, came to the rescue.

“When I was matched with Ann in fourth grade, I had grown up with some difficulties in my life,” said Megan Galloway. “It was my thing that I went to every week, where I was like, ‘Oh, I get to see Ann!’” 

That was seven years ago last February. Galloway, now 17, is a student at Haywood Early College and will likely graduate from the program a year early before going on to study marine biology at UNC Wilmington. 

My car is usually something of a mess, a magnet for loose papers, empty food wrappers and an impressively random assortment of items packed for some excursion or another but never returned to their proper place. Such was the case the day of my first-ever outing as a big sister with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and so I judiciously set aside a few minutes before leaving to clear out the passenger seat — though mostly by tossing all the junk covering it into the back.