A new pilot program -- Bigs with Badges -- will allow police officers and firefighters to serve as role models for kids who are part of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Siloam Springs.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Arkansas announced the pilot during a press conference at Southside Elementary School on Friday. The program matches police officers and firefighters with students in the school district, according to Tiffany Hansen, director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Siloam Springs.
Officers and firefighters will have the option to mentor students through a school-based program, where they meet with students one or two days a week for lunch, or through a community-based program, where couples or families will meet with kids to do fun activities such as go to the movies or the park outside of school, Hansen said.
Bigs with Badges is the first program of its kind in the region, according to Tami Shaver, program director for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Arkansas. Nationally, Big Brothers Big Sisters implemented the Bigs with Badges program in 2016, and currently there are about 50 sites that offer Bigs with Badges, and about 700 kids being mentored by police officers or firefighters, Hansen said.
Police Chief Jim Wilmeth's enthusiasm and willingness to participate in Bigs with Badges helped bring the program to Siloam Springs, Shaver said.
Wilmeth, who has a degree in education, said he was serving on an advisory council for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Arkansas when he learned about Bigs with Badges.
"I had heard peripherally about this program and when I brought it up, I wanted Siloam to be the first one to do it in Northwest Arkansas,' he said. "I wanted to try it here. We already had a very strong relationship with our SROs (school resource officers) and the school and with our community with our children and I wanted to maintain that. I don't believe in acting on something after there is a problem, I believe in working on something before it becomes one."
So far two Siloam Springs police officers and two firefighters have been matched with students.
School resource officer Josh Fritz and Zachery Calcott, a student at Southside Elementary School, have been matched since early November. Fritz primarily works at Allen Elementary School and the intermediate school, so he and Calcott already knew each other.
Now they have a chance to build a closer relationship. Fritz comes to the school every Wednesday to eat lunch with Calcott, then play games and hang out. Calcott said that he enjoys playing Jenga and Hangman with Fritz inside, and Rugby ball, frisby and catch when they have a chance to go outdoors.
"I became an SRO to really make an impact in our community, positive for the kids primarily," Fritz said. " We talk about proactive policing and stopping any type of crime before it happens so what better way to do that than make an impact on the kids. That's what I love about it and Zack's a lot of fun and being able to come and kind of take a break from the kind of craziness of being a cop and hang out with him is good."
Fire captain Chad Fugate and Lathan Pack, also a Southside Elementary School student, have been matched for about three weeks. Pack said he likes having lunch with Fugate, and enjoys their conversations and the games they play together.
Fugate said the department has been looking for a way to do community outreach, especially with kids and Big Brothers Big Sisters reached out at the right time.
"Having the mentors out there to help the boys and girls is just awesome," said assistant fire chief Travis White. "In the fire service, you have your fire family, you have your family, these guys have taken on a third family relationship that will last for a lifetime hopefully."
Bigs with Badges also has benefits for the police officers and firefighters who are involved, Wilmeth said.
"Our firefighters and our police officers, almost every call we take is a trauma call," he said. "There is something that happened there that is negative in somebody's life, some kind of stress. That weighs on us over time, so what's better than to go have some fun and to be a mentor to a child. It gives us back some of our life, it's good for my people too."
The local program was designed deliberately so that it could be replicated throughout the department as well as in other departments in the city and elsewhere, according to Wilmeth.
Shaver is also hopeful the Bigs with Badges program in Siloam Springs will serve as a template for some of the other Big Brothers Big Sisters locations in Northwest Arkansas. The Siloam Springs Police and Fire Departments are excited about being the first in the area, she said.
"I think they're going to challenge some of the other police departments and fire departments to take it on," she said.
General News on 01/30/2019