PARIS – Team captains and bowlers joined the staff of the Child Health Center’s Big Brothers Big Sisters program and a Big Brother Big Sister mentoring match for breakfast to learn more about bowling in the 14th annual Bowl For Kids’ Sake fund-raiser.

Bowl For Kids’ Sake is the largest fund-raising event for Big Brothers Big Sisters and the proceeds from the Saturday and Sunday, April 16 and 17, event at the Oxford Hills Bowling Lanes will support mentoring programs in the Oxford Hills community.

Those who attended had an opportunity to meet and talk to mentor Tabitha Rodgers, a student at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, and her mentee, 7-year-old Baylee Heikkinen, a student at the Guy E. Rowe School.

Rodgers and Heikkinen have been matched for two years as part of the Child Health Center’s site-based mentoring program. They meet each week at the Rowe School and spend time working on schoolwork, having fun and talking.

Rodgers and Heikkinen are one of more than 700 matches that have been established by this Big Brothers Big Sisters program. The center offers mentoring programs throughout Oxford, Androscoggin, northern Cumberland and southern Franklin counties.

Along with the site-based program that meets at schools, YMCAs and similar sites, they also offer community-based mentoring, a mentoring program for children of incarcerated parents and mentoring program in career-development for youth in transition.

During the breakfast Jessica Truman, mentoring coordinator and events coordinator, explained how to form teams and talked a little about the event that will be held in South Paris.

Truman said, “It is not too late to form a team to bowl in support of mentoring. Teams are comprised of four or five bowlers who raise advanced sponsorship monies and then come together on the day of the event and have fun bowling.”

Truman said, “This year for every $100 a team member raises, they have the opportunity be included in the grand prize drawing and become eligible to win a 42-inch plasma TV.” Other prizes include door prizes donated by local businesses and prizes for the top individual and company fund-raisers.

Those who would like to form or join a team should call Big Brothers Big Sisters at 743-7035 and ask for Truman or e-mail bbbs@megalink.net.