Sister Spokesman event was held at one of our favorite spots around the Twin Cities. Mrs. Arnellia’s is the only African American female owned establishment in the area. Attendees always enjoy this location and what it offers our community. The theme was Education: Helping Young Adults Get Through High School and into College.

One panelist at the event was Portia McClain. Portia broke it down to the crowd of about 50 attendees. Ms. McClain is a true orator as the attendees listened in silence. She serves as the student learning advocate of student services at Coon Rapids High School. She shared pieces of the language used by this generation. She spoke in depth about the need to understand our children and the need to recognize that all children do not learn in the traditional setting. She highlighted the need to meet the students where they are and build on that. She spoke of the importance of that because if that rapport isn’t established, then our children will not get what they need in order to succeed in society.

Another panelist covered the financial piece in obtaining loans, grants and work study for those entering college. She spoke on the importance of taking accelerated classes in high school. The importance of volunteerism in your community and being prepared to do some work in writing essays to get scholarship money. She said there’s many great opportunities for scholarships is available if one pursued it seriously and doesn’t mind putting in the work.

The panelists were great and the questions from the audience and the responses were extremely informative. Both panelists shared a wealth of information for those in attendance.

Sweet Vettes Desserts were front and center with mouth watering Louisiana banana pudding, peach cobblers, hot out of the oven banana nut breads and lemon pound cake which was sold by the slice.

Sister Spokesman also gives an opportunity to each vendor to do a 30 second spot to highlight their products and services. This allows great advertisement and certainly gets the crowd stirring and stopping at booths to sample some of those mouth watering desserts and exchange one on one conversation between sistahs.

Sister Spokesman is free and open to the public. The door prizes, drawings and games are wonderful. And don’t forget about sugar bowl drawing, this is where you enter by putting in $5 in and near the end of the event some special sistah walks away with a pocket full of cash. I was lucky in July when I entered and my ticket was drawn. Come and join this great monthly event.