BY CHRISTINA M. SEILER, News Editor, The Rochester Sentinel
America's economic woes have affected some of Fulton County's most vulnerable children. Big Brothers/Big Sisters of North Central Indiana ceased operations this week.
Its clients and volunteers have been notified, said executive board President Steve Judson, Peru. He hopes the little brothers and sisters and their adult mentors will continue relationships, because seeing their agency support go, he said, is the hardest part of the decision.
By the end of March, Big Brothers/Big Sisters' three offices in Fulton, Miami and Howard counties will be vacant.
"We've had a problem for about a year. It was a year ago when the funding started to freeze up," Judson said.
"Howard County (United Way) cut us off," he said. "Miami County was considering dropping theirs." Fulton County United Way was not planning a cut this year, Judson said. With the weakening economy in the auto industry, the other two counties had more trouble meeting their goals last year.
"Whatever is left over will be turned back," Judson said of funding. "We're already turning some back."
"It's extremely hard. I've been a big. I know what it does for a child," Judson said. "I've been with the program since 1995. It's probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make."
Jonathon Moreland, the agency's executive director and Fulton County program director, is charged with wrapping things up. He's the only one of three recent staffers left. The agency's office in Kokomo already is closed and its telephone disconnected. The Rochester office telephone still accepts messages. The agency's Web site is operational for now.
Judson said the Kokomo office is being cleared out, followed by Rochester. Supplies, records and furniture will be moved to Peru, the cheapest of the three offices to keep open, until everything is taken care of.
Funding for the agency, Judson said, fell to less than half of needed levels after Howard County withdrew its support. "We looked at Miami and Fulton alone, but it would have been difficult to make Jonathon's salary. It was just going to be impossible," Judson said.
He said the agency's board considered a massive fundraising effort. "It would have just dragged it out. If it hadn't worked we'd have put ourselves in a situation where we'd have been put in a deeper hole," Judson said.
He visited other states to see how they made their organizations work. Ideas were tossed back and forth for months, he said, but none were good enough to guarantee the agency would stay in the black.
Trying to keep the agency going in Fulton County alone, Judson said, did not seem feasible, despite United Way funding. "We had very little board support in Fulton County," Judson said. In fact, visits to various organizations and attempts to drum up help were unsuccessful and there have been no board members from Fulton County recently, Judson said.
He did not discount the idea of restarting the agency when the economy changes and people have more money to donate to such worthy causes.
At last count, there were six children in Fulton County waiting for mentors. Judson was not able to say how many active matches there are in Fulton County, but in 2006, the agency's Fulton County budget was $30,000 per year and 66 Fulton County children were being served - either with traditional big and little matches, or in the School Buddies, after-school and Big for a Day programs.
Moreland could not be reached Tuesday or Wednesday.
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