(upbeat music) - Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah connects six to 18 year olds with one-to-one mentoring relationships.

Right now, there's a large need for dozens of mentors to step up, and Jill Sundstrom joins us now to share how you can help.

Thank you for being here, Jill.

- Thanks so much for having me, Liz.

- So tell me about this need.

About how many mentors is Big Brothers Big Sisters looking for?

- Yeah, we're looking.

We have about 90 youth waiting for a mentor, and most of those are boys right now across the state of Utah.

- Why are we seeing this disparity of mostly boys needing the mentors?

- Yeah, we tend to have more boys apply for the program.

About 60% of our applications come from boys, and only about 40% of our volunteer applications come from men.

And so there's always this kind of gap for men.

So we're just wrapping up our men to mentor campaign to try and get more men excited and realize it doesn't take as much as they think.

- Yeah, sometimes people are like, "Well, I'm strapped tight for cash.

I can barely afford to do fun things myself.

How can I be a mentor to someone else?"

But there's all kinds of ways that people can get involved, right?

- Yeah, absolutely.

And we try to host activities, opportunities.

Most of our mentors say they got more out of the program than they ever put in, honestly.

And so much of the community comes behind us and supports our matches to allow for like buy one, get one free or opportunities to attend jazz events or different things.

- And what do the kids get from it?

Why do their parents or loved ones sign them up for this program?

- Yeah, we've seen that our mentoring program affects things like mental health.

We see decreased depressive rates in kids that are matched for a year.

97% of our youth graduate from high school, which is huge.

And just things like emotional regulation, social skills.

Everyone deserves to have someone in their corner and help them to kind of develop those skills.

- Yeah, so hopefully there's someone out there watching right now that wants to sign up and become a part of this.

I want to thank you for taking the time out, for joining us, and sharing this information.

If you would like to help out, volunteer, or even just to learn more about Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah, we've got the website for you on the screen right now.

That's bbsu.org.

Just head there and get more information.

I'm Liz Adeola, and thank you for watching "Contact."

(soft music) Philanthropy, Arts, culture.

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Hi, I'm Liz Adeola, the host of Contact, a show that connects you with local events and organizations that serve your community.

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