A big organization in Delaware County and across the country has a new way to spread its message. Big Brothers Big Sisters unveiled a new logo Monday. But IPR’s Sara Barker reports there’s more to the new look than meets the eye.

Monday afternoon marked a big change for Big Brothers Big Sisters.

At the East Central Indiana location’s office on Charles Street, executive director Sue Godfrey spurred the change.

She climbed a ladder and tore off brown butcher paper covering the windows, unveiling a new brand for the program.

In her announcement Monday, Godfrey said this change will hopefully get the community more involved in mentoring children – especially boys, for which the location has a 25-child waiting list right now.

“The largest need that we have right now is for male volunteers – so, bigs,” Godfrey said. “Eighteen [year olds] to, really, 80, 88 could be a big brother. We need big sisters also, but our greatest need is for big brothers.”

Those at the unveiling, including treasurer of the board Tina Rabel, said the mentorship has a lasting impact well into adult years.

:I was in the Marine Corps with a guy, and when he was in town just a few months ago, he brough up this story about him and his big and about how they still – he’s 50 years old – they still talk to each other. Doesn’t even live in the same state,” Rabel said.

Past littles can see this as well. Stuart Godfrey, a past little and former board member, spoke about his time in the program.

“It was really, 100 percent fun,” he said. “There was no sort of curriculum. There was no agenda. It was just, you know, going out and having some man to hang out with.”

His dad died when he was five years old, so his mom signed him up for Big Brothers Big Sisters.

“It just opened up a lot of doors for me and I could see in him like, a path forward,” he said. “I ended up at Ball State and ended up going to college and maybe I would have done those things regardless, but definitely he was influential in that.

The logo, Sue Godfrey said, is a visual representation of that growth. She demonstrated it on her shirt emblazoned with the brand. In total, the logo looks like an uppercase letter B.

“The reason that we’re changing the branding is our mission was not necessarily clear to everyone we were speaking to,” Godfrey said.

Inside this B is a white lowercase b, topped off by a green curve forming the uppercase letter. This shows the potential Godfrey said mentors work to defend, not create, in the boys and girls in the program.

“What we have realized that we need to re-engage our supporters and our community members of all ages to be bigs to the kids in our community,” Godfrey said.