BY CASSIDEY KAVATHAS, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Bona Buddies, a youth mentorship program based out of St. Bonaventure University’s Franciscan Center for Social Concern, cultivates life-long memories and inspires the next generation.
“It’s such a heartwarming thing to see the buddies come on campus every week and have the time of their lives when they’re here,” said Tharini Nagarkar, a senior health and society major with a biology minor. “That’s why I continue to be involved in this club because I really like what we do.”
Bona Buddies matches students in Cattaraugus County, specifically the Allegany, Olean and Portville areas, ages five to 15 with a Bonaventure student. The students meet once a week, and the program runs Monday through Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m.
“We bring in different clubs of St. Bonaventure, to give them diversity, exposure to new topics and show them the university’s resources,” said Allie Zhang, a senior health science major with a biomedical concentration and public health double major. “We also can provide academic help like homework help. It’s just where kids can come and build a relationship with a college student and have a good time.”
One of the primary goals of Bona Buddies is creating a positive role model for the buddies who come spend time on campus.
“It’s been a long-standing program, and it’s something that is pretty much entirely student-run with the support of the FCSC,” said Nagarkar. “For the Cattaraugus County area, it’s an opportunity for the families and buddies to get exposure to a college campus. What we try to do is expose the buddies to different activities so that they can learn about what they might be interested in and then provide them with resources to be able to explore those interests.”
The program has often affected generations of families in the Olean and Alleagany areas.
“We have families who were either Bona Buddies themselves when they were younger, or employees of Bonaventure whose kids had been in the Bona Buddies program years prior, still talking about the positivity it brought for them and how much their kids really liked having someone to look up to,” said Nagarkar.
Beyond having an older person to look up to, the Bona Buddies program offers consistency to lives that can be unstable.
“For a lot of single moms out there and families where the grandparents are in custody of their children, it means a lot to have an upstanding college kid spend time with their kid and be a source of consistency,” said Zhang. “A lot of our buddies’ parents always talk to me about having a consistent figure that their child can look up to. Because for a lot of these children, they may not have both parents in their lives or see them regularly. So having someone play football with them is a super big deal that they can bond over and can help them feel understood and seen.”
The Bona Buddies program isn’t only beneficial for the buddies. Mentors find support as well.
“It helps our students take time away from the university bubble and reconnect with the town that we live in,” said Zhang. “It gives them time to bond with someone who doesn’t know about the test on Thursday and to take away from all these academic or athletic pressures. It provides them with two hours of just coloring and spending time with a five-year-old kid who’s just interested in talking about broccoli or hot wheels.”
The buddies learn from one another and their mentors during their two-hour stay on campus. Each buddy has a one-on-one relationship, which allows for individualized care.
“What we want to do is be able to cater to each kid’s individual needs because every buddy that we have is so unique in their own respective way,” said Nagarkar. “We have them interact with each other, learn from each other and inspire each other in so many ways because we have mentors that cater to the buddies’ needs, whether that’s learning disabilities, academic needs or just someone they can look up to.”
Bona Buddies is largely funded by donations to the FCSC.
“From healthier snacks to games, or getting new footballs and basketballs, all that stuff comes from our donors,” said Zhang.
Donations also cover the salaries for coordinators who run the administrative side of the program.
“It allows for our coordinator team to be as robust as possible so that we can continue to take care of the administrative side of things and be able to allocate our resources the right way,” said Nagarkar. “Giving Tuesday is really important for us to be able to do that. We’re really thankful for the gifts and donations we’ve received.”
kavathcj20@bonaventure.edu
