Lately, I have been reminded daily of the old adage of Man plans and God laughs.

On April 30, I am retiring as the Executive Director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of WNC after 28 years.

I was really looking forward to my retirement party and the opportunity to reconnect, one last time, with all of the wonderful people, who have been a part of the program over the years. However, this has been canceled because of COVID-19.

As I enter the home stretch of my career of working to better childrens lives, I have been doing a lot of contemplation. And, what stands out most in my mind are the following three a-ha moments that have influenced me as a person and as a director.

The first is the impact of poverty on child development. For someone who grew up in a middle-class home, this realization has been totally eye opening.

Poverty shrinks every aspect of a childs life from day one. A child living in poverty does not have ready access or exposure to all of the learning opportunities that children with more privilege do.

I applaud the United Way of Henderson County for their strategic goal of working to alleviate the impacts of poverty for the people we serve. At Big Brothers Big Sisters of WNC, we train and support all of the Big Brother and Big Sister mentors to help build the childrens background knowledge through games, books and social interactions.

Author Ruby Payne described mentoring as the most effective bridge out of poverty. Through mentoring we are providing the children with the knowledge, skills and confidence to work towards a better future.

This effort does not always work, but like the old story about the starfish on the beach, if it works for one, we have been successful.

The second, more recent, a-ha has been the development of trauma-informed care. I am not learned enough to adequately explain this to you, but it is the fact that trauma or extreme stress forces the thinking, rational part of your brain to switch to the fight or flight response.

With repeated trauma this response becomes normal and can result in long term detrimental impacts on the individual. And, related to the above, living in poverty exposes children to stress and trauma on a daily basis.

The trauma-informed care perspective is important because it provides a biological explanation for human behavior. How your brain reacts to stimuli of any kind is biological. It is not the result of parenting, personality, race or any other factor. This is a very important concept for all of us to accept and remember in interacting with others during our lives.

And, my last a-ha is related to COVID-19 and social distancing. The pandemic has illuminated that we all need a network of people caring for us on a daily basis.

I worry about the children and families that dont have an easy way to the grocery store, or dont have the savings to get through an extended job lay-off.

We are asking our Bigs and staff to increase their phone calls, texts and emails to the families in the program in an effort to provide a connection and hopefully to provide a way to obtain any help that the families may need during this time of hardships.

So, I am ending my career, not on the selfish high note that I expected, but instead dealing with the worst crisis of our lifetime.

Yet, this is the most fitting way to go continuing to help others, to build connections with those less fortunate than ourselves and to provide support and hope.

I am proud of being a part of an organization that has been doing this for the past 38 years in western North Carolina.

I feel privileged to have been associated with all of the fantastic volunteers, who have served as Big Brothers, Big Sisters, or Board and Advisory Council members, and all of the caring families, who loved their child enough to ask for help in giving them a better future.

I look forward in my retirement to having a mechanic or nurse who mentions that they were once a Little in our program. Thank you all for supporting me in having the best job in the world.

Robin Myers email address is open until his official retirement on May 1. To reach out to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Western North Carolinas executive director, email him at robinm@bbbswnc.org or visit http://www.bbbswnc.org.

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Column: Robin Myer reflects on a-ha career moments at BBBS ahead of retirement - BlueRidgeNow.com