Someone to Show Up
Big Brothers Big Sisters changes the direction of young lives—one relationship at a time.
words by emily hering | photos courtesy of big brothers big sisters
–Ted (big) with Cam (little).
It started with a loaf of bread and some ducks.
In April 2013, a program manager with the mentoring organization Big Brothers Big Sisters made the introduction—and when the moment came for that first in-person meeting, Ted knocked on a Portland door and met a young boy named Cam face-to-face. No plan beyond that, no script. Just Deering Oaks Park, a bag of bread, and a match that had been made with quiet intention. Neither of them knew, on that cool spring afternoon, that they were at the beginning of something that would shape them both for the rest of their lives.
At the time, Cam was just eight years old and the oldest in a single-parent household. He helped with his siblings, kept things in order, and showed up when he was needed.
What he didn’t have was someone ahead of him, showing him the way.
Ted was 20-something, working through his own questions about how to make a difference in the world. A conversation with his mother—herself once a Little in the program—pointed him toward Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Maine. He signed up a few days later. A few months after that, he was meeting a boy who would change his life.
In the early days, Cam was quiet. But he was also—as Ted would come to learn—watching everything. Asking questions when he was ready. Asking the ones that mattered.
“Ted filled in for what I might not have had: an older brother. Being the oldest came with heavy responsibilities, but he helped me to alleviate that.”
–cam (little, matched 2006–2016)
One evening, on the drive home from an outing, Cam turned to Ted and asked, “Do you spend time with me because you have to, or because you want to?”
Ted told him he wanted to. Cam smiled—wide and quiet—and looked straight ahead the rest of the way home.
Another time, idling in a McDonald’s drive-through, Cam asked, “Can we still be friends after the program ends?”
“Of course,” Ted said. “We’ll never stop being friends.”
Ted never forgot the way Cam took in his answers. “That kid was wise beyond his years,” he'd say later. “Always asking questions that caught me off guard but really made me think.” Ted knew they weren’t small questions and answered both the same way: honestly, and without hesitation.
The years stacked up the way good years do—gradually, then all at once. Sea Dogs games. Kayaking at Highland Lake. Basketball on the Eastern Promenade. Long evenings at the movies, always with a large popcorn dusted in ranch seasoning. Ted got married, bought a house, had three children. Cam got his first job, saved for a car, joined a band, discovered a passion for coding.
Today, Cam is 21. He works in tech during the week and serves as an Army National Guard infantryman on weekends— “geek on weekdays, blowing things up on the weekends,” as he puts it. This spring, he deployed to the Middle East. Before he left, he stopped by Ted’s house with a dish of shepherd’s pie he’d made from scratch.
Ted’s two youngest children had been at the window, watching for headlights. They knew Cam was coming. They knew he was family.
Ted and Cam are not an exception. Across Southern Maine, these relationships are quietly building in ways that are hard to measure and impossible to forget.
“Cathy and this program has given me so many tools to bloom into the person I’ve always dreamed of being. They have been a part of some of the biggest moments of my life and have changed it.”
–jessy (little, matched 2006–2016)
Jessy was matched with her Big, Cathy, in 2006. She was a child who struggled with confidence in reading but became someone who never left the house without a book. Cathy gave her a pen and paper one afternoon and told her to write a story. She is now a paid writer and moved to France after graduation—her things still in Cathy’s basement, her passport, a graduation gift from the woman who believed in her first.
Patrick has been matched with his Little, Carter, since 2023. A few months in, they were at a BBBS trivia night when a question came up about the program’s age limit. Carter learned the answer was seventeen. His face dropped.
“So you’re telling me,” Carter said, “that when I’m 18, I can’t be your friend anymore?”
Patrick didn’t hesitate. “You’re stuck with me, pal,” he told him. “I’m yours until you don’t want to hang out anymore. When you grow up, when you get married, whatever. I hope that I’m still privileged to be there.” Carter’s response was simple: “We will always be friends, and that’s what really makes me happy.”
Different years. Different stories. The same unmistakable thing—a child discovering that someone chose them, and that the choosing doesn’t have an expiration date.
Interim Executive Director and Director of Development/Communications Eileen Veroneau Brown at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Maine is also a Big herself. She understands from both sides of the relationship what these matches actually do.
“My Little has taught me as much as I have ever taught her. That is the beautiful truth about mentoring: it is never one-directional. When we open ourselves to these relationships, we are transformed right alongside the young people we serve,” says Eileen.
Cam is deploying overseas this spring, carrying with him the certainty that Ted’s kids are back in Portland waiting to give him a hug. Jessy is in France writing stories for a living with the tools and confidence Cathy gave her. Carter is somewhere in southern Maine, continuing to build his friendship with Patrick over shared meals and laughter together.
Three matches. The same thread running through all of it: a child who needed someone to show up, and an adult who did.
That’s what Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Maine makes possible. Not grand gestures. Just presence—chosen, consistent, and for a lifetime.
To become a Big in Southern Maine, visit somebigs.org
