Big Sister of The Year, Zakiya

You met Big Sister Zakiya and her Little Sister Autumn when they were the Match of the Month in July last year. Since then you have seen them together in our Empower Resilience campaign. This match will not be separated by the current health crisis or the cold weather. In addition to staying connected to her Little, Zakiya has helped Autumn grow, and advocated for our program in the community. She is everything we look for in a Big and we wholeheartedly congratulate her on being the Big Sister of the Year!  

Autumn said that her favorite thing about having Zakiya as a Big is that she is kind. She also said she loves going on outings with Zakiya and, “just getting to know her.” Having a mentor that you can trust to show up, and have your back makes a huge impact on Littles like Autumn. It builds their confidence, both in themselves and their ability to do new things. Knowing that, that bond is reliable even in the most uncertain times, can be a guide when life gets hard. 

Zakiya goes out of her way to celebrate Autumn’s accomplishments. Autumn is an excellent student, she is always on top of her school work, and adjusted quickly to learning from home. Zakiya lets Autumn know how awesome her academic achievement is by regularly bragging about how smart her Little Sister is. She made an extra effort to celebrate Autumn when she earned the Student of the Month award. When Little’s feel celebrated in this way it emphasizes the value of their hard work and motivates them to keep it up.  

Zakiya not only goes out of her to be an amazing Big to Autumn, but she also goes above and beyond by giving additional time and financial support to our program. She helped with our Adopt-A-Family program this year. On #GiveBigDay, when we asked our volunteers to help us fundraise, Zakiya was there for that too. She is willing to go the extra mile, even when that mile is a difficult climb, and that is what set her apart as our Big Sister of the Year. Congrats to both Zakiya and Autumn, you are an amazing match and we can’t wait to see what you do in 2021.