About 20 children and adults crammed around a conference table at Kaiser Permanente Orchards Medical Office in Vancouver on Tuesday.
The group ate chicken fingers, jojo fries, salad and Rice Krispies treats for lunch, before playing a board game while reflecting on the past school year and pondering the future. These hangouts happen twice a month during the school year at Kaiser’s Orchards office as part of Big Brothers Big Sisters of AMerica Beyond School Walls program, where companies host nearby school children for an hour of one-to-one mentoring.
Kaiser Orchards staff are considered the bigs in the relationship. Sifton Elementary School students are considered the littles. Wednesday’s meeting was particularly special because it included an appearance from Big Brothers Big Sisters CEO Pam Iorio, who is also a former mayor of Tampa, Fla.
Iorio said Big Brothers Big Sisters wants to emphasize the Beyond Schools Walls program. Holman Automotive in Vancouver and Mill Plain Elementary are the other Clark County partners in the program.
“It’s an opportunity for young people to be connected to their ‘big,’ and also to see a workplace,” Iorio said. “For many young people, it may be the first time they’ve been in a professional work environment. We feel that’s an important part of the mentoring process, to not only develop that one to one relationship, but for the ‘little’ to see the ‘big’ as a productive member of the workforce and to learn from that.”
Beach Pace, the CEO for Big Brothers Big Sisters Columbia Northwest, said Beyond School Walls helps the kids feel welcome in the business community, and it allows them to meet people who wouldn’t normally intersect with their circle of family and friends. She said it benefits companies such as Kaiser and Holman Automotive as well.
“When corporations connect with Big Brothers Big Sisters, it helps with recruitment because people want to be involved with organizations that want to give back,” Pace said. “It helps with retention. People want to stay in organizations that give back. And it helps with team building. When you have people from different parts of an organization in this room that would normally never work together, it strengthens the organizational culture.”
Kevin Varner, a medical office leader with Kaiser, said he’s seen the impact Beyond School Walls has had on staff at the location. He said the staff’s biggest concern is that they want to do even more.
Varner explained that Kaiser Orchards already has a relationship with kids from Sifton. Many of them receive care from the staff. He said Beyond School Walls has strengthened Kaiser Orchards’ bond with the nearby community, and that it will help Kaiser better serve the community.
“If you see these patients, or kids who come through the door and they have all these problems and you’re just here to fix this one medical issue, you know they’re just going to go home and have issues at school or in their community,” he said. “This way they make a connection and they can mentor these kids up and have a positive impact not just on health care, but on everything.”
Katrina Nelson, who works at Kaiser Orchards, is the big of Valeria Carey, 9, a Sifton student. Nelson and Carey have been matched for two years now, and have progressed to spending time with each other outside the Orchards meet-ups. They’ve had a picnic, gone to the mall and done a mini-makeover together.
“Every day is an adventure,” Carey said.
