The Buddy Program is expanding into Carbondale. The mostly Aspen-based nonprofit has served 3100 kids, mainly in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley. Now it’s opened an office in Carbondale. The Buddy Program matches high school or adult mentors with youth aged 6 through 18 years old. The nonprofit has been working with kids in Carbondale since 2010, but only this summer did the the Buddy Program move into the 3rd Street Center.
One success story so far is mentor Alex Aufmann and her Little Buddy. They’ve been meeting once a week for a little over a year. Here’s how Aufmann describes the experience.
"My little buddy, she is going into 7th grade. She is part of a large family in Carbondale. She is youngest of four children, and she lives with a lot of family members. Her grandmother’s in the home with her, even her new new niece [lives there], her older sister had a baby. And so she comes from a family that has been in the Valley for a long time, they’re very well connected. As of about two Christmases ago, [my Little Buddy] had a very serious death in the family with her mother.”
Aufmann is a young professional in Carbondale, and takes her relationship with her Little Buddy seriously. Her mentee is Latina, like 90% of the nearly 100 Little Buddies so far in Carbondale. Lindsay Lofaro is Assistant Director of the program. She says some Latino families are dealing with stress, like living in poverty, parents commuting long distances, even recovering from violence in a previous country. But Lofaro is quick to point out the nonprofit is expanding in Carbondale in order to serve a wide variety of kids here— regardless of their background. She explains the program this way.
"The Buddy Program has been serving Carbondale since 2010. And we saw opportunity this year to get closer, be more visible to the community by opening office in the 3rd Street Center. And we decided to run with that opportunity. We do not only take children from single homes, there’s not necessarily a background that [makes a] typical Little Buddy profile. We work with any child that comes through our doors, as long as the family is is willing to work with us and a mentor that we provide.”
Lofaro’s nonprofit is taking more mentors in Carbondale, especially adult males.
