Mentoring program makes lifelong friends

Despite more than 60 years age difference between them, Evelyn Hubler and Jake Huizenga have become the best of friends — that’s the power of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Iowa. The pair were matched up in 2003 when Huizenga was in the second grade. Now, five years later, the 12-year-old and his mentor still spend one half-hour a week together playing cards, making models, reading, talking and developing what they both described as a “lifelong friendship.” “We like to play card games like Kings in the Corner, read books, play chess,” Huizenga said from the office at Berg Elementary School where the two meet. “Well he’s trying to teach me how to play chess. I thought I’d find an outsider who could teach me that I could come back and b