“I know Jeff will always be there for me.”
--Joey McDonald
Joey McDonald says his father was never around between the ages of 2 and 10 and only intermittently after that. Never played games with him, never helped him with schoolwork, “never really was a real dad.”
Joey says when he’d go to church functions or father-and-son banquets, everyone was nice to him, but he would always wonder: “Where’s my dad at? That was always hard growing up.” Making things more difficult was that he had no male role models at home; he lived with his sister and divorced mother.
He says now that he would have given up altogether if it hadn’t been for Jeff Schaller coming into this life as part of United Way-supported Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Northeast Indiana. What began as a volunteer arrangement when Joey was 11 has turned into a real brotherly friendship that both say will last a lifetime.
“I know Jeff will always be there for me,” says Joey.
“It doesn’t feel like I’m volunteering for anything,” says Jeff, married and the father of one. “I think I’ll have a friend forever.”
Jeff, now 35, and Joey, now 20, have played basketball together, tried golf and worked on homework. More important, says Joey, his Big Brother is teaching him how to eventually be a good husband and a father.
In the process, Joey has become part of Jeff’s extended family and Joey’s mom thinks the world of Jeff. But neither Joey nor Jeff thinks such things are out of the ordinary. Just two brothers, sharing joys, hurdling obstacles and living life.
Jeff will continue tending to his family, Joey and all, and Joey wants to go to school to become a barber. After that, Joey says, “I definitely want to become a Big Brother myself and give back to the community.”
