Carla Clark | For The Republic Bella Nickerson bowls during Bowl for Kids Sake a Foundation for Youth fundraising event for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Bartholomew County hosted by Columbus Bowling Center, Columbus, Ind., Saturday, March 2, 2024.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Bartholomew County begins its biggest fundraising event of the year today.
Bowl for Kids’ Sake, two days of the community coming together to support and raise funds for Foundation for Youth’s Big Brothers Big Sisters of Bartholomew County program, will be taking place at the Columbus Bowling Center, 3010 State St., Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Over 80 teams of up to five bowlers each have signed up to participate this year, Big Brothers Big Sisters program director Kelly Backmeyer said. Each team was also tasked with setting a fundraiser goal of $500, according to Foundation for Youth’s website.
“Many of our matches come out, our Bigs and our Littles, our coaches and our mentees, will come out and have fun that day as well as give their own testimonial as to why they have participated or become a part of what the program means and what the fundraising does,” Backmeyer said.
The goal of Bowl for Kids’ Sake is to raise over $100,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters and their mission of matching kids with adult volunteers who help kids realize their potential and build their futures. As Big Brothers Big Sisters is a zero fee program, 100% of all proceeds raised from the event will go towards expenses such as paying for background checks.
“In addition to that, beyond that, it supports our professionally supported match support specialists,” Backmeyer said. “They’re providing the support throughout the match before the match even begins and at the closure of the match, in addition to providing those match activities.”
New to this year’s Bowl for Kids’ Sake and as part as their “Kids Fundraising for Kids” initiative, two classes each from Parkside Elementary and L.C. Schmitt Elementary will be coming Friday morning to bowl. While in past years Bowl for Kids’ Sake has typically been held on the first full weekend of March, this year, the dates have been switched to Friday and Saturday.
“… we thought, ‘you know, we have a program in the schools, throughout all of the schools, it’s called our School Based, Site Based mentoring program, and a lot of our students are actually mentees or Littles in the program so wouldn’t it be fun for kids to help other kids?,’” Backmeyer said.
Throughout the district, schools were given the opportunity to fundraise with Penny Wars, and the classes who raised the most money received an opportunity to take a field trip and bowl at Bowl for Kids’ Sake. Schools could also choose to fundraise through other means like having hat days or jeans days, Backmeyer said.
“Southside, Parkside and Schmitt Elementary decided to do the Penny Wars, which is so heavily lifted by our very own committee member, who is a high school student, Bella Nickerson,” Backmeyer said. “She started this a couple years ago and with that, kids are charged with the task of bringing in their pennies, their coins, their dollars, however they choose to fundraise for this event.”
For those who still want to donate to Big Brothers Big Sisters, a donation link is available at foundationforyouth.com.
