Big Brothers Big Sisters developed the Beyond School Walls program in 2008 as a way to partner at-risk students with corporate leaders in the workplace. Since then, students from Lincoln Elementary School in New Britain, Connecticut have visited employee volunteers at our Comcast regional office in Berlin twice a month throughout the school year, developing mentoring relationships through lunchtime conversations and group activities. The partnership includes 20 students and 21 Comcast volunteers.
Comcast volunteers have remained committed to their Littles (mentees) even as the pandemic has sent them home to work and learn, respectively. Comcast Bigs (mentors) have been participating in weekly group video meetings to play word games and trade jokes with their Littles.
“The Bigs and Littles were very excited to be back together,” said Brad Palazzo, Director of Community Impact for Comcast’s Western New England Region. “Videoconferencing is how all of us are keeping connected right now to important relationships at school, work and now for our mentors and mentees.”
In addition to supporting Nutmeg Big Brothers Big Sisters, Comcast is committed to at-risk students’ access to broadband through our Internet Essentials program, the nation’s largest, most comprehensive and most successful broadband adoption program for low-income Americans.
For more on steps we’re taking to make it easier to connect low-income families to home Internet during this time, go to https://www.internetessentials.com/covid19.
