Bib Brothers Big Sisters 250Noran Rahim, a teen mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Luis Obispo County’s school based Program, has earned the agency’s “Take Flight” award, bestowed only to students who volunteer as mentors throughout all four years of their high school career. Local pilots, in honor of all Noran has done to help elementary school youth expand their horizons, gain new perspectives and launch their dreams, provided a celebratory flight over the vistas of SLO County for the “big sister” and her nine-year old “little,” Sonia. This year, in a group of 79 student mentors, Noran is the teen to achieve the award.

Noran and Sonia enjoyed a 30-minute ride in a Piper Arrow single-engine airplane, piloted by Cheryl Cooney and assisted by pilot Elizabeth Dinan. They flew over many beautiful San Luis Obispo locations, including Cal Poly campus and Avila Beach.  Cooney and Dinan belong to the SLO Chapter of the Ninety Nines, an international organization of women pilots that promotes advancement of aviation through education, scholarships and mutual support while honoring the unique history of women pilots and sharing a passion for flight.

Big Brothers Big Sisters operates school based programs creates sustained, supervised, one-to-one mentoring relationships between high school and elementary students at Sinsheimer, Nipomo and Del Mar Elementary Schools. The agency will be accepting teen volunteer applications from students at SLO, Mission Prep, Nipomo, New Tech and Morro Bay high schools in August and September.

For more than 100 years Big Brothers Big Sisters has dedicated its cause to the belief that every child has the ability to succeed and thrive in life. Most children served are in single-parent and low-income families or households where a parent is incarcerated.  As a part of the nation’s largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network, they make meaningful, monitored friendships between adult volunteers and children.  Funding provides for a system of ongoing evaluation and support that is proven by independent studies to help families by improving the odds that participating children will perform better in school, avoid violence and illegal activities, and have stronger relationships with their parents and others. For more information on volunteering or contributing to Big Brothers Big Sisters, call 781-3226, or log onto www.slobigs.org.