Foreign So first let me say just how grateful and honored I am here I am to be here today with you uh General president longer thank you for your friendship your partnership and partnership and work and advancement of mentorship in this country and Big Brothers Big Sisters and Alpha Phi Alpha
Relationships I was raised in a large family and we didn’t have a lot of means but my parents always instilled in us that we were rich in relationships see my dad was a preacher my granddad was a preacher I thought I had to follow in
The footsteps of my dad and I asked him I said hey do I need to be a minister like you and my dad shared with me these words of the Guardian principle of my life and my message for you today he said son he everyone has their Ministry in this world
You have to find yours see those words imbue my purpose but they also showed me that wasn’t Bound by generational expectations what I look like where I came from how much money we had that God gave me Grace to order my steps and along those steps was a
Village of mentors who came around into my community and helped a young black kid become the first in his family to go to college it was at UGA that I found Zeta pie chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated it was my first experience of seeing a
Group of college educated black men who had a singular purpose who was designed towards service where the commitment to character integrity who were friends who were connectors but most importantly who were brothers and they guided me along the step along this journey in every decision in my
Life that looked back in Alpha how I treated my family I went about my life how I chose my career and it led me to this very moment each of us have our own Ministry our own Journey but we also have a shared Ministry the ministry service
A Brotherhood of mentorship if you think about where we are today this relationship Alpha Phi Alpha and Big Brothers Big Sisters three decades three decades in the making the work that we are doing now is inspiring we have thousands of Brothers who are bids so to continue to
Do this work to inspire more kids to have access because we got one in three kids in this country that don’t have a positive sustained Mentor thirty thousand kids on our waiting list right now most of those kids are boys most of those boys are boys of color but we can
Change that we are thankful for all of you and remember Alpha men we change lives and those lies go along to change their surrounding go on to change their Community going to change this country and ultimately go on to change this world
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