Becky Webber figured Big Brothers Big Sisters of Yellowstone County would be a strong candidate for federal stimulus funding when she applied for a grant earlier this year.

Webber is the director of the agency, which has been pairing at-risk kids with adult mentors for 30 years in Yellowstone County. She was said it was "huge process" applying for a youth-mentoring grant through the federal Department of Justice.

So it was a huge disappointment when the application was turned down.

"I was really stunned that we didn't get it because we made a really good case and we serve a lot of kids," Webber said.

Another federal grant, this one aimed at helping children whose parents are incarcerated, was applied for on behalf of all nine Big Brothers Big Sisters organizations in Montana. It, too, was denied.

Webber said she and other BBBS officials have since learned that, over the past couple of years, federal grant funding for youth-mentoring programs has been tilting more and more in favor of large organizations, which means that most of the funding has been going to programs in big urban centers.

In Washington, D.C., it apparently doesn't seem too important that a group like Big Brothers Big Sisters of Yellowstone County serves only 300 kids a year.

"What they don't realize is that, even though there's only 300 here, it has a big impact on those 300," Webber said.

But Big Brothers Big Sisters, like most nonprofits, was always wary of becoming too reliant on grants anyway, Webber said. The lack of federal funding means that the agency will have to work harder on its local fundraising events and on obtaining financial support from local foundations and individual donors, she said.

One of the agency's two big fundraising events of the year is coming up soon. The Bowl for Kids' Sake is scheduled for Nov. 14 and 15 at Sunset Bowl, 1625 Central Ave.

Last year, about 240 people organized into 46 teams and raised nearly $30,000 to support the local BBBS.

This year, Webber said, "$35,000 is our goal, but we'd like to blow that out of the water."

The other major fundraiser is a spring auction.

This year's budget for the agency is about $280,000. Some of the money goes for reference and criminal background checks on people who volunteer to be adult mentors, Webber said, but most of the budget is spent on providing professional support to each pair of a Big and a Little, as they are called.

BBBS of Yellowstone County has seven staff members who work with the pairs, offering supervision, advice and help dealing with any problems that might come up.

The agency's community-based program, in which adults spend one to two hours a week with a child who has similar interests, is serving 85 kids this year.

The school-based program, which started five years ago, has 140 high school students mentoring two kids each at Head Start, eight elementary schools and two middle schools, in Billings and Laurel.

That means 280 kids are visited twice a week by high school mentors who help them with academic and social issues. Webber said some of the high school volunteers gather every week at the agency's headquarters, 504 B N. 29th St., to receive professional training, to relate their own success stories and to engage in peer-to-peer counseling with other teen volunteers.

"If you're ever discouraged with youth today, just come by our office on a Friday afternoon," Webber said.