Creating ‘Big’ impact for local kids

Photos: Exact Sciences' Taylor Farrey and her Little, who matched through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Dane County.

Event: Dream BIG Gala for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Dane County 

Location: Madison, Wisconsin 

Date: Summer 2024 

Impact: Serving about 500 youths each year, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Dane County matches young people (Littles) with adult volunteers for long-term, one-to-one mentoring relationships. The annual Dream BIG Gala raises money to fund the program, which is available at no cost to Littles and their families. 

The event raised more than $326,000. 

Exact Sciences’ involvement: Two people from the Exact Sciences team, Chief Laboratory Officer Ana Hooker and HR Senior Director Lyn-Marie Pilgrim, serve on the organization’s board. Exact Sciences donated $10,000 to sponsor the event. 

Volunteer support: Exact Sciences provides its team members 16 hours of paid time off each year to help them give back to causes they care about.  

Taylor Farrey, a specimen processing manager at Exact Sciences, volunteers as a Big Sister with the program. She matched with her Little, then age 7, in 2019.  

The two stayed close by videochatting during the pandemic and now plan outings and activities to do together. Because they’ve been matched for so long, it’s been fun for Farrey to see her Little grow up and experience how their relationship has changed. 

“We hit it off from the start,” Farrey says. “We are very close. Obviously, the topics of conversation have changed as she’s getting older, and that’s exciting. Previously, it was kind of talking about unicorns and listening to Disney music and going to play outside. Now we have deeper conversations about what’s happened since we’ve seen each other and things happening at school and friends and all of that. As she ages, getting to see her grow in that way is really cool.” 

They also get to show up for each other as their lives change. Farrey’s Little came to her wedding, and Farrey attended her Little’s fifth-grade graduation. That long-term connection is incredibly gratifying, she says. 

“It brings out my inner child. Sometimes we lose that as we get into routines of work and everything else. My Little gave me an excuse to go do all those fun, childish things that I wouldn’t normally do at my age, like going sledding in the winter and ice skating and trampoline parks,” she says.  

 Farrey also learned early on that the relationship doesn’t just benefit her Little: “I’ve found it really rewarding. It pours just as much into me as it does her.”