{"id":13550,"date":"2009-04-15T12:40:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-15T19:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=13550"},"modified":"2015-08-17T14:50:26","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T21:50:26","slug":"big-brother-makes-a-big-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/big-brother-makes-a-big-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Big Brother\u2019 makes a big difference"},"content":{"rendered":"

From participating in the Peace Corps to building houses in Africa for Habitat for Humanity,\u00a0Scott Guenthner<\/strong>\u00a0hasn\u2019t stopped making a difference since he settled in Flagstaff.<\/p>\n

After getting a job at NAU, Guenthner, a lecturer in the English department, was itching to participate in a local volunteer activity. He got involved as a \u201cBig Brother\u201d for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Flagstaff, a nonprofit organization striving to help children succeed by matching them with adult mentors. Often the children come from single-parent homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny volunteer work will give you a bigger perspective on what the true problems or issues in your life really are,\u201d Guenthner said. \u201cIt has been a stress relief to realize some things in life just aren\u2019t as big of a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guenthner spends a few hours each week hanging out with his \u201clittle brother\u201d Chris, an observant 10-year-old who is crazy about sports. Chris has won an award each year in school for being the student in his grade with the best character.<\/p>\n

Normally, the two play football, Frisbee, or another sport outside. They also attend movies or local events together. Sunday is the only day of the week they can\u2019t meet, unless Guenthner agrees to watch the entire Cardinals football game, as Chris never misses a game.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an English lecturer, I\u2019ve gotten him interested in reading books, and we talk about books a lot,\u201d Guenthner said. \u201cI also bring him to my office to do homework, and he\u2019s gotten very comfortable talking to the staff at the English department. He\u2019s not as shy as he used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guenthner has been volunteering as a \u201cbig brother\u201d for one year and encourages his students to get involved in community service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re an NAU student, you\u2019re fairly privileged, and a lot of people in our community don\u2019t have that opportunity,\u201d Guenthner said. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to give back that privilege and share what you have with other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

For information about Big Brothers Big Sisters of Flagstaff, visit\u00a0bbbsf.com\/index.htm<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From participating in the Peace Corps to building houses in Africa for Habitat for Humanity,\u00a0Scott Guenthner\u00a0hasn\u2019t stopped making a difference since he settled in Flagstaff. After getting a job at NAU, Guenthner, a lecturer in the English department, was itching to participate in a local volunteer activity. He got involved as a \u201cBig Brother\u201d for…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":13554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}