Last year, Jackie Wethington ‘23 and Ivy Besikof ‘23 noticed that there was a disconnect between parents and babysitters within the school community, so they looked for a way to close this gap. Now, they’re looking for someone to take over their project.
Their creation, Bears to Care, “is a networking program to connect Upper School students with Lower School families,” says Wethington. Besikof explains that interested students fill out a form with “their name, contact information, and then a description about themselves.” Wethington and Besikof compile this information on a Google Doc, which is sent out by the Parent Association. Parents then can peruse the list of students, get in contact with a babysitter, and decide on the details of the job.
Both avid babysitters themselves, Wethington and Besikof “thought that by making this program, it would be easier for parents to find sitters and students to find families to babysit,” as Besikof explains. Wethington recalls some of the struggles she witnessed parents having. “[Rebekah] Johnson is my advisor, and she was saying several times how it was kind of annoying or frustrating because she was always looking for a babysitter but she wasn’t able to reach out to people, unless they [had] reached out to her [first].”
The process of creating the program was quite extensive. Wethington explains, “There were a lot of hurdles because [the program] couldn’t be Blake sponsored because of liability stuff.” She continues, “We contacted the Parent Association (PA) and went back and forth with them.” They wanted the list to be on Veracross so parents could have easy access, “but the PA was saying that because it wasn’t Blake affiliated, [the program] couldn’t be on it,” Wethington explains. Instead, the list is sent out periodically by the PA. Wethington adds, “So it kind of had to be word of mouth.”
Now that it’s up and running, however, “it’s not a lot of work to run the program. [We] just update the list once or twice a year and keep contact with the PA,” Besikof says. They are hoping that the program will continue next year. Besikof adds, “We’re looking for a sophomore or junior who would be interested in taking it over.”
If you have any questions about joining the program or running it, reach out to either Wethington or Besikof at [email protected] or [email protected].
