The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
The sector closes institutions as well as founding them: the county's mentoring agency died in June 2025 after 57 years. Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Southern Lake Michigan Region — the former Big Brothers Big Sisters of St. Joseph County, expanded on 1 January 2020 by acquiring the Lower West Michigan agency — closed in June 2025 after 57 years, its statement (carried in the South Bend Tribune's August–September 2025 coverage) citing challenges stemming from the pandemic; about 300 children stood on its waiting list at the end. The succession prints with the closure, because it is the sector's own answer: a successor nonprofit, Resonant Vibe, was founded by Katie Craft to carry the mentoring work forward — a closure with an heir, the modern form. The leg's second verified closure stands in the poor-relief article: Portage Manor, 31 July 2023, after 116 years in its 1906 building — the county's oldest charity plant and its newest mentoring agency closing within two years of each other. No Lakeville-seated charity closure is recorded in any carrier reached; the township's register organisations stand as the civic file left them, November 2026.
Principal sources: South Bend Tribune, August–September 2025 (the BBBS closure and the Resonant Vibe succession); the county commissioners' closure release for the Manor (31 July 2023); the banked this history register.