History
LBN was founded in 2008 by pediatrician Dr. Alisa Lipson, her daughters Dena and Samantha, and their friend Alison Lee. The initial motivation came from Dr. Lipson seeing children in her practice, whose teachers thought needed comprehensive learning assessments. She realized that many of these kids did not have severe learning disorders and were fundamentally capable; however, they were struggling with early academics and losing confidence for many non-academic reasons. For children whose families were not in a position to help, the gap between themselves and their peers would widen over time.
Her insight was to intervene quickly with something as simple as a boost from an interested mentor to help turn around low self-esteem. A mentor did not need to be a professional. Indeed, a young person could provide the child with an ally, someone with whom they could connect, feel safe, and learn good work habits; not an authority figure, but still someone the child could look up to.
Dr. Lipson and her team developed a program in which high school and university students are trained to work one-on-one with children who need a boost, and Learning Buddies Network was born.
The pilot project at David Lloyd George, a designated Inner-City School in Vancouver, worked very well. Every week after school, ten mentors met with their ten Little Buddies — children specifically selected by their teachers as needing help. The Little Buddies, mentors, teachers, and parents became keen champions of the mentoring model.
Over the following years, volunteers stepped up to leadership positions and brought LBN programs to new schools and centres. LBN grew as a grassroots organization powered by the commitment and enthusiasm of volunteers, and sustained by the pride, happiness, and gratitude of our Little Buddies and their families for the work we do.
Fast forward to 2020, and a whole new world began to emerge as the Covid-19 Pandemic impacted society, including our education system. With Covid, we switched from one after-school session in schools to two sessions weekly over Zoom. Programs were enthusiastically embraced by our participants and schools, and we discovered we could reach many more schools, some even in rural and remote communities. We also attracted volunteers from eastern Canada and the U.S. with the freedom that online allowed.
By the Fall of 2022, we were invited back to provide in-person programs in classrooms and have maintained all of our online groups. This past summer and two school year terms, 2022-2023, LBN has successfully run online and in-person mentoring blocks of 550 positions across more than 50 schools. This marks the greatest expansion in our organization’s history, allowing us to reach more students than we ever have before.
In addition, we have also created a partnership with Bella Bella Community School, where we host reading and math programs once a week. It is our first hybrid program, with mentors connecting online and buddies present in-person, and teacher staff members from Bella Bella supervising the sessions.
We are excited to embark on a new direction of helping Indigenous children, both in remote and urban settings, through a three-year grant from the Roadburg Foundation. We are also working on expansion to new schools and communities in the next year as capacity allows.
Dr. Lipson still dedicates much of her time and energy to LBN, as Founder and President of the Board. Dr. Alice Ho, Alison Lee’s mother, previously a founding board member, continues to contribute much to the community. Her dedicated fund-raising activities have kept LBN in a financially sound position throughout its history. More information about LBN’s team can be found here.
During these years, many people have contributed to the success of LBN, either as Funders and Donors, as members of the Volunteer Board, paid Staff and Consultants, Student Volunteers and Mentors, or Colleagues from the School system who have enthusiastically contributed their time and energy to helping LBN to thrive and grow. More information about our sponsors can be found here.
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