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'Bigs' announce Valley amalgamation

Two operations merge to streamline resources in the Fraser Valley, including Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Mission.

Big Brothers Big Sisters has announced that it has formally amalgamated its Upper Fraser Valley and Abbotsford-Mission-Ridge Meadows operations.

The organization will now be known locally as Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Fraser Valley.

The agency will continue to operate from its three offices in Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Mission, with active programming in those areas as well as Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Hope and with the Sts’ailes Band.

The amalgamation was a two-year process, but it was a logical move, said treasurer Corbin Kempenaar at the organization’s annual general meeting on April 18.

“Operating two separate, but closely related, organizations was becoming complex and diverting from our purpose,” he said.

Merging the operations will enable the agency to better focus on its purpose of matching volunteer mentors with local children, he added.

In 2011, the agency matched 410 children in the area with one-on-one, community- and school-based mentors.

This spring, new mentoring co-ordinators were hired to work in Chilliwack and Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows.