By Mia Khatib
mia.khatib@triangletribune.com
RALEIGH — The SISI Small PEARLS Leadership Academy celebrated its 11th anniversary at the North Carolina Executive Mansion last week. The academy for girls ages 7 to 17 falls under the nonprofit The Sisters Inspiring Sisters Incorporated, which offers transportation assistance to help cancer patients receive treatment.
“Owning The Power of Who and Hue I Am” was the event’s theme. Founder Terry W. Spicer said the academy is all about providing access and opportunity to the girls and “Preparing Elegant And Ready Leaders for Success” through their deliberate curriculum.
“Showing these girls that success looks just like them, and providing leaders in front of them each month, gifting them with experiential learning helping to grow them forward, that’s what this program is all about,” Spicer told The Tribune. “We give them strategic and deliberate tools to help advance because they come to us already brilliant.”
The girls meet monthly for tons of various public service and learning experiences like creating Thanksgiving baskets for people in need and participating in cooking shows.
Chrystal Redding, a founding board member of The SISI, said the greatest part of the Small PEARLS program has been watching her daughter, Tiye Blalock, grow stronger and more confident.
“My child has had an IEP since kindergarten and throughout this whole time, The SISI was really a booster for confidence,” she said. “That just helps her so much build those levels of achievement, to the point where she got invited to come to Johnston County Community College tuition-free.”
The celebration honored five graduating seniors — Blalock, Jadyah Dancy, Kayla Williams, Ny’ema Williams and Tiffani Williams — who will receive college scholarships, the first the organization has been able to offer since 2020. Dancy said she’s grateful for her time at the academy and is glad to have been in a space with successful leaders who look like her.
“I joined this program at a time when I was second-guessing myself, and I had a lot of anxiety around if I was good enough, and this program really helped me with that,” Dancy, who has been in the program for nine years, said between tears.
Small PEARL Brielle Kearney, 11, who earned second place in the Elite International Piano Competition, also performed for the audience at the mansion. This was just a few days before she was set to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
“I’m always looking for opportunities,” Spicer said. “And that’s a memory that she will have for the rest of her life.”
The SISI has provided transportation assistance to more than 1,600 cancer patients across 16 states, Washington, D.C., and all 100 counties in North Carolina. For more information, visit thesisi.org
Mia Khatib, who covers affordable housing and gentrification, is a Report for America corps member.
