ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Mentorship. Positive Influence. Support. These are words associated with being a Big Brother or Big Sister. So, imagine a parent’s horror at discovering the “Big Brother” her son was paired with was condoning drug use.
“She said, ‘hey, I don’t know what kind of program you guys are running there, but your Big? We need to end the match,'”Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Capital Region CEO Keila dos Santos said, sharing a phone call she received from a mother who said she was introduced to a man who said he was a Big Brother and wanted to mentor her 15-year-old son. She agreed, and now that man was encouraging her son to use drugs.
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“So, we went to investigate him to see who this was,” dos Santos recalled. “Again, no person past, present or potential Big under the name that she gave us was found in our database.”
She said “again,” because in the last week, her organization received three separate calls about imposters. She said one in particular put them on high alert…