It wasn’t until a few years ago that Big Brothers Big
Sisters Alumnus, Mark Veldhoven, now 37, realized
just how much of a difference it made for him to have had a Big Brother growing up. Looking back on his
experience, many of the weekly activities have
escaped from his memory and it has been well over
20 years since he’s seen or heard from his Big Brother.  But the one thing he knows for sure, is just how lucky he was to have had him in his life. Here is Mark’s story.

“I have felt compelled for sometime now to let
Big Brothers Big Sisters know how much my
experience as a Little Brother meant to me as
I grew older. I look back now with many fond
memories of the time I shared with my then Big
Brother, Leo. When my family moved to Yarmouth
late in 1979 from Amherst, Nova Scotia, it was a
difficult transition. I was 10 years old and my
parents had divorced many years earlier when
I was 4. Now in a new town and starting a new life,
it all seemed very far away from the last one. My mother, Louise, had her hands full, raising two boys on her own and working a stressful job at the hospital. With my father back in Amherst, our time together was very limited and visits would be infrequent, usually just once a year. It was hard as a young boy to find an older, one-on-one male role model or companion. I now understand how vital this is for any young person. After some time in our new life, my mother enrolled me in the new Big Brothers Big Sisters program, just opening in Yarmouth, NS. It wasn't long before a match took place and I became
Yarmouth's first Little Brother.

I think it was every other Sunday that Leo would come and pick me up. We would go for brunch at the Grand Hotel and then often go to the Arcade at the mall, where his friend, who ran the place, would be there counting the money from all the video game machines. The Arcade was closed to the public and he would give me free reign on all the open machines to play for free as long as I wanted! I would just flip the metal tab the coins would hit with my finger and off I went! This was a lot of fun at that age. He also taught me how to play pool and showed me the trick shots and how to bank the balls- I was a bit of a pool shark for a while there. We did a lot of other things too, but I guess the point of it all was I had that special time with someone older to help give me the
tools to become a young man when there was no one else. I had my friends’ fathers to joke with, but that wasn't the same. I used to get jealous of my friends who had their father’s with them to do all that father/son stuff. I would hear them complain sometimes and I just thought to myself, they
didn't know how good they had it. I had to throw a ball against a cement wall to catch it and they were crying because their Dad didn't have the time to spend at that given moment.

A year or two later Big Brothers Big Sisters asked me to do a voice over for a radio commercial on the local radio station. It was a blast to do! I did it in 3 takes. The funny part was, after it was done, I went to Amherst to visit my Dad for 3 or 4 weeks (the longest visit I ever had) and by the time I returned, they had stopped running it, so I never actually heard the finished commercial! Oh well.

I want to acknowledge Big Brothers Big Sisters,
my Mom and especially to Big Brother Leo, wherever he may be. I had the first and best Big Brother in Yarmouth. It can be very easy to take it all for granted when you’re a kid. Life takes you to different places and experiences, but a time comes when you can look back and realize all of those forgotten things that have helped mold you into who and what you have become.