Turner Chapel AME Church Iron Sharpens Iron Mentoring Academy

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, granddads, stepdads, uncles, brothers, cousins, surrogates and mentors who have played a role in the growth, teaching and nurturing of a child. God bless you all!

We'd like to give a big shoutout to the four high school graduates who were each awarded $500 from the Jamal Thorpe Scholarship – Joshua Barker, Yorey Byrd, Daemian White and Xavier Willis. Congratulations for a job well done gentlemen!

Amen. A blessed Memorial Day to you all.

The Men’s Ministry at Turner Chapel launched a Student Lunch initiative (Lunch Angels) to help families experiencing hardship in staying current with student lunch accounts. ISI and Sons of Allen, raised funds to pay off the school lunch accounts that were in arrears. The initiative was administered in partnership with several schools in Cobb County and this week we were honored to present checks to three of the schools where ISI holds mentoring programs. – Smitha Middle School, McClure Middle School and Hollydale Elementary School.

ISI would like to extend our warmest congratulations to our High School Graduates of 2023 - Joshua Barker, Yorey Byrd and Daemian White. We are extremely proud of them, and we pray God's covering as they pursue their future goals and purpose in life.
Turner Chapel AME Church will be holding its Graduation Ceremony for all its High School Seniors during our upcoming service on Sunday, May 28th.

For our April 15th Group Session, we continued the series with our Special Guest Speaker Chike Uzoka, CEO of Valentine Global, aka "The Teens Money Guy - Building generational wealth from the ground up! ” He’s the author of "The Teens Guide to Wealth" and a fully licensed Financial Advisor. This series will continue for another month, and it has given the mentees an opportunity to invest in a $1,000 Grant.

We had a great session this month (Saturday March 11, 2023), starting off with our Bible Verse Homework segment (Deuteronomy 8:18), where the boys explained their individual interpretations of the scripture and how it applied in their lives. This verse also tied in with our next segment and Special Guest Speaker Chike Uzoka, CEO of Valentine Global, aka "The Teens Money Guy - Building generational wealth from the ground up! ”Chike is the author of "The Teens Guide to Wealth", a fully licensed Financial Advisor, and a member of the Association for African-American Financial Advisors, Association of Black Estate Planning Professionals, and Atlanta Black Chamber."
This series will continue the next two months, giving the mentees an opportunity to invest in a $1,000 Grant. It was very informative and enlightening and we are looking forward to the next two upcoming sessions.

We recently visited the office of Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens to present him with a plaque in appreciation for what he has done for ISI. Sheriff Owens made history in November 2020 when he became the First African-American elected to be Sheriff of Cobb County, running on a platform of truth, trust, and transparency. In 2021 he was the guest speaker at one of our monthly group sessions and blessed our young men with a generous donation of $1,000 to our Jamal Thorpe Memorial Scholarship Fund.
(Please watch video above)

MENTEE HIGHLIGHT – YOREY BYRD
On Saturday February 11, ISI member Yorey Byrd was promoted to Eagle Scout, which is the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouts of America. He received this well-deserved ranking through his hard work and dedication. Yorey is a 12th grader and an “A” student at Grace Christian Academy. He is planning to be an electrical engineer and is looking at colleges to attend in Tennessee or Georgia, once he graduates.
CONGRATULATIONS Yorey! We are very proud of you.

We are highlighting one of ISI’s longest and committed mentees, Joshua Barker, who has been with our program since 2014. On Football National Signing Day, Josh aka Joshua “Big Bear” Barker committed to play for the Tigers at Benedict College, a private HBCU in Columbia, South Carolina. Josh will be graduating this year from Kell High School in Marietta. He’s on the Kell Longhorns Football team as a defensive lineman who has had more than 20 sacks. We are very proud of Josh and all his accomplishments, as we’ve watched him over the years grow in his gifts and talents athletically, academically and spiritually. Congratulations and well done Joshua! May you allow the Lord to order your steps during your journey through life.

Praying that you all have a blessed and prosperous 2023.

In continuing ISI’s middle school mentoring program we started mentoring at McClure Middle School in 2021, after being contacted by their Principal Mr. Corey Stanley to mentor the boys there. These pics were taken during Pajama Week, to jumpstart the holiday season.
Our mentors remain committed to reaching out to as many young men as possible. The program has been a success for many of the boys at these middle schools.

ISI started a mentoring program at Smitha Middle School in 2016, after Vice Principal Rhonda Williams reached out to us, and it continues today, thanks to the mentors who remain committed. Over the years, we branched out to a few other middle schools as well. Ms. Williams recently expressed that the program continues to be a success for the boys at Smitha.

We had a great October session titled, Let’s Talk: Spiritually Developing Young Black Entrepreneurs. Our Guest Speakers were two of our ISI mentees highlighting their businesses.
Austin Johnson, who is a former ISI mentee, is the proud owner of Margina (Margin.co) which is a T-shirt company.
Titus Smith (TJBizKid) who is an ISI mentee, and also an entrepreneur, has published three books.
ISI mentor Don Williams was also a guest speaker.
Mr. Williams is CEO of Princeton Healthcare Inc. He directs global solutions to support healthcare and technology initiatives for international companies and governmental agencies. All three speakers presented some great information and inspiration.

We always stress the importance of including God first in your plans and He will direct your path. It was a very good and enlightening session.

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, granddads, stepdads, uncles, brothers, cousins, surrogates and mentors who have played a role in growth, teaching and nurturing of a child. God bless you all!

ISI would like to again extend our warmest congratulations to our five High School Graduates of 2022. We are proud of each and every one of them, and we pray God's covering as they pursue their future goals and purpose in life.

This past Sunday, during our morning worship service and a Leadership Reception immediately following, ISI’s former Ministry Head, McIvery “Mac” Johnson was recognized for his leadership. He served in that position from March 2014 until January 2022.
We want to thank Bro. Mac for his committed and dedicated service over the past 8 years and beyond, as he is still mentoring our male youth at Turner Chapel as well as volunteering as a Middle School Mentor every week for the 6th, 7th and 8th grade male youth.

Turner Chapel AME Church Iron Sharpens Iron Mentoring Academy updated their phone number.

ISI will be holding our first Annual Gaming Tournament.
For more details and to sign up, click the link below.
Click here to Register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd0OJFbcjA5hbA66n1__rMLCWfdmcEDacQl1JhZHfDQTgKHCw/viewform

Video we watched at the Christmas Party, created by Mentor Eric Nelums featuring our mentees over the years and how they’ve developed from boys to men. It shows the 139 names of boys who were a part of ISI over the past 7 years plus years.
https://vimeo.com/657957567

Turner ISI Through THe Years 2021 This is "Turner ISI Through THe Years 2021" by Eric K. Nelums on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

After having to skip a year due to the pandemic, we were able to celebrate this holiday season with our annual Christmas Party on Saturday Dec. 18th. We had a great turnout with our young men and their families as well as our mentors. It was such a blessing to see our young men reunited, including some of our high school graduates who came back to celebrate and give words of wisdom to our younger ISI members.
A fun time was had by all as we ate, socialized, enjoyed being entertained through music and singing by a few of our talented young men.
We also watched an awesome video slide show that Bro. Eric Nelums created, featuring our mentees over the years and how they’ve developed from boys to men. It also featured a clip created by one of our graduate mentees Jeshua Williams.
We had games and gave out prizes to the winners. There were also prizes given to the boys with the 2 highest GPAs.
Thanks again to all who came out and helped to make this celebration a huge success!

Happy New Year from ISI. Praying that you have a Blessed and Prosperous year in 2022.

ISI would like to wish you all a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving.

This month we had our first session since summer break and it was great, starting off with our Bible Verse Homework segment (2 Corinthians 4:7-11). It was really inspiring to hear these boys explain their individual interpretations of the scripture and how it applied in their lives. The scriptures we give them each month help them to understand that they don’t have to depend on social media or opinions from others to resolve some of the situations they are confronted with. For our next segment our Special Guest Speaker
Was the new Cobb County Sheriff, Craig Owens, who made history in November 2020 by becoming the First African-American elected to be Sheriff of Cobb County, running on a platform of truth, trust, and transparency. He gave us a good description of how the Sheriff Department functions, and the improvements he will be making, as well as opportunities for our youth to obtain employment at the Department.
Sheriff Owens also blessed us with a generous $1,000 donation to our Jamal Thorpe Memorial Scholarship Fund. It was a great session, and very enlightening for our young men.