Big Brothers Big Sisters honors 40-year match

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Indiana recently honored a 40-year match in the 49th Annual Gourmet Dinner May 17.

In 1986, Big Brother Stan Rice was working as an insurance salesman when he crossed paths with Rick McCampbell, a man who would change his life forever. McCampbell was at his parents’ home in Rice’s neighborhood, playing basketball with four young boys Rice had never seen before.

This was Rice’s first brush with Big Brothers Big Sisters, an organization which matches children in need of a mentor with an adult willing to spend time with them twice a month to unlock that child’s limitless potential. When Rice called the organization, he learned there were children all over Fort Wayne waiting to be matched with an adult.

This was how he met eight-yearold Quavis Tate.

“My life was confusing, a little dysfunctional, growing up in the inner city,” said Tate. “I grew up in a single-parent home with my mother and little sister, and my mom worked a lot, so I was responsible for getting myself to school, getting myself home, looking after my sister, and just being the ‘ man of the house’ at a young age.”

Spending time with Rice allowed Tate to take a break from being a mini-adult and enjoy outdoor activities and opportunities he’d never had before. Together, he and Rice visited the lakes, where Rice taught him how to swim and water-ski. They went kayaking, rode horses, fished, and attended Notre Dame football games to foster Tate’s love and talent for the game.

“We started out pretty slow,” said Rice. “I think everybody is a little scared, because you’re just starting on this. I’d never done it before and Quavis, he was a bit intimidated by me.”

“I was thinking, ‘okay, who is this guy? What’s going on?’ Because I still couldn’t grasp this Big Brother thing,” Tate said. “He made it so simple and easy for me. He made it so natural for me to be comfortable and trust him just by being himself. We had a lot of things in common; everything we did, we both enjoyed it.”

For both of them, the most vivid memory of their match is when Rice taught a young Tate how to swim.

“I remember he threw me in the lake right off the pier. I was afraid the fish would eat me or bite me … I didn’t like how the bottom would feel on my feet. Stan broke that real quick!” said Tate with a grin. “And from then on, I became a really good, strong swimmer.”

From there the pair quickly moved on to water skiing. “Usually when you get up on that boat, it takes forever to get a skier up,” Rice noted. “He got up the first time. And the smile on his face – I’ll never forget that.”

Those smiles were important to Rice. Beyond the simple life lessons he conveyed to Tate by teaching him how to interact with adults and pronounce difficult words correctly, Rice wanted to make sure Tate had plenty of reasons to smile.

“I wanted to change Quavis’ environment,” said Rice. “And he had a rough environment. I wanted Quavis to see the other side.”

Growing up, Tate rarely left the inner-city South Side of Fort Wayne where his mother lived. He never even got as far as Glenbrook Mall. Just visiting the southwest side of the city to see Rice for their weekend visits, “It was totally different,” Tate said. “It was quiet. It was cleaner. It was peaceful.”

For Tate, it was an eye-opener. Here were homes with well-manicured lawns year-round and personal vehicles in every driveway. When he grew up and had kids of his own, he realized he wanted to raise them some place like this.

“It planted a seed in me that I had options,” Tate said.

Being matched with Rice gave him a much-needed direction. He knew that to achieve what Rice had, he needed to stay “on the right side of the street,” do well in school, and stay out of trouble – and with Rice, he had a built-in mentor prepared to help him take all the right steps. When Rice got married, he made sure young Quavis was there at the wedding in his very first tuxedo.

“No matter where we went, we were surrounded [by] white people and here’s this little Black kid,” said Tate, blinking back tears. “But they’d ask Stan who I was, and he’d say ‘He’s my brother. He’s my brother.’”

Toward the end of their Match, Rice took Tate for a long drive in the countryside where he broke the news. Soon their match would end and they would go their separate ways, and Tate would navigate adult life on his own. But when Tate started to cry, Rice knew he couldn’t end it there.

So he didn’t, and 40 years later, their Match is still going strong, with Rice visiting Tate throughout his college years and Tate and his wife bringing back souvenirs for Rice from their trip to the Grand Canyon.

“The match has never been closed,” said Rice. “It might be for Big Brothers Big Sisters [in an official capacity], but this is a lifetime. I don’t regret it at all. He’s been a part of my life for over 40 years.”

“He took this stranger and he taught me how to speak, social skills, conquer fears, and at the foundation of that is Big Brothers Big Sisters,” said Tate. “Without Big Brothers Big Sisters, I never would’ve met Stan. Big Brothers Big Sisters is like this big angel that sends out other angels. That’s what it was for me, and There are hundreds of kids waiting for someone like you. Big Brothers Big Sisters just asks you to be there for one.”

To donate to or volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters, visit bbbsnei.org.