NEW: IAM Introduces Featured Mentors for Fall 2014

IAM Welcomes Syreeta Martin & Garron Gibbs!

IAM Girl Talk Featured Mentor

Syreeta “Sincerely Syreeta” Martin graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in journalism and founded SincerelySyreeta.com, a blog that seeks to inspire, empower and motivate others on their personal life journey. The mother of two currently runs her consulting business, Sincerely Syreeta & Co. and her community outreach initiative, SiSy’s Here, in addition to motivational speaking and freelancing for publications such as EBONY.com.

Syreeta enjoys spending quality time with family, writing, eating (she’s a self-proclaimed “fat kid”), singing, taking in the arts, and serving the community through activism and event coverage. Connect with SS via e-mail: SincerelySyreeta@gmail.com.

Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA

Facebook: Sincerely Syreeta

Twitter: @SincerelyReeta

Instagram: @SincerelySyreeta

IAM Guy Talk Featured Mentor

Garron Gibbs was born and raised in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia to a hard-working mother and a disciplinarian father. Both of whom, pushed him to require more of himself. In 2008, he graduated from Howard University with a BA in Communications without knowing for certain what he wanted to do with his degree. Garron decided to begin his professional career in sales for a large media company. There he quickly learned that traditional corporate bureaucracies can be cold and uncompromising. At the same time, he began to notice a wave of young adults creating their own pathways instead of relying on corporate institutions. After a year of brainstorming, planning and re-planning, Concrete Cakes was born. The goal is to use the platform to promote the idea that you don’t have to choose between making money and doing what you love. Beyond that, Concrete Cakes is growing to the point where we can offer concrete resources and opportunities for artists and entrepreneurs. Stay tuned.

Twitter/Instagram: @ConcreteCakes @Concrete_G

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Concrete.Cakes

Email: ConcreteCakes@gmail.com

For the past two years, the Influencing Action Movement (IAM) has operated 2 virtual mentoring programs for youth between the ages of 11 – 19. The virtual mentoring programs have allowed youth to maintain positive relationships with college students, entrepreneurs, and young professionals on its online portals — IAM Girl Talk, a Virtual Social Development program exclusively for females, and IAM Guy Talk, exclusively for males. Virtual mentoring is an alternative to traditional mentoring because long-term it is cost-effective and more importantly has the potential to be high-touch in an evolving hi-tech world.

Join the conversations!

Click here for IAM Girl Talk

Click here for IAM Guy Talk

2014-2015 Program Structure

Monthly IAM Girl Talk and IAM Guy Talk Blog posts

IAM started as a blog in 2011, thus we have experience with engaging students and mentors through this virtual medium. During the program year, beginning September 2014, monthly blog posts on an array of different issues impacting students social and academic development will be facilitated by featured IAM Mentors – a female to post for IAM Girl Talk and a male to post for IAM guy talk. The posts will compliment each other and be released simultaneously in the middle of each month. Each featured mentor will also host an Instagram Takeover where they will take over the @influenceaction account and post quotes and pictures related to their blog posts encouraging dialogue.

IAM Student TakeOvers

In addition to the monthly blog posts, IAM will host quarterly Student TakeOvers to include live entertainment and a panel discussion on on an array of different issues impacting students social and academic development. The MCs for the event and moderators for the panel will be the 2 featured mentors from that term. The panel will include a mix of students and mentors. The panel discussion will provide a platform for students to speak openly about keys issues.