ABOUT

Our History

NATIONAL

In 1904, New York City court clerk Ernest Coulter saw more and more boys coming through his courtroom. He recognized the need for caring adults to help create an innovative alternative to the criminal justice system. That marked the beginning of the Big Brothers movement.

At around the same time, the members of a group called Ladies of Charity were befriending girls who had come through the New York Children’s Court. That group would later become Catholic Big Sisters.

Both groups continued to work independently until 1977, when Big Brothers Association and Big Sisters International joined forces and became Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

More than 100 years later, Big Brothers Big Sisters remains true to our founders’ vision of bringing caring role models into the lives of children. And, today, Big Brothers Big Sisters currently operates in all 50 states—and in 12 countries around the world.

LOCAL

Originally Big Brothers Big Sisters of Sheboygan County, the WI Shoreline affiliate of Big Brothers Big Sisters led the effort bringing mentoring programs to children in the state of Wisconsin by becoming the first Big Brothers of America in Wisconsin in 1965. A merger of the two local groups happened in 1982 when Big Brothers Big Sisters of Sheboygan County, Inc. was incorporated.

In 2021, the organization grew once more leading a merger with their neighboring affiliate of Manitowoc County founded in 1968, thus becoming Big Brothers Big Sisters WI Shoreline serving Sheboygan and Manitowoc counties. In nearly six decades, we have served nearly 20,000 children creating meaningful and professionally supported matches between adult volunteer mentors (Bigs) and children (Littles), ages 5 through 18, in both urban and rural communities.