IECA Conference, Celebrating Mentees and Family Time: A Week Refreshing For The Soul

This past week has truly been refreshing to my soul. Spending time with many people that I love but don’t get to see often, both from the professional world and my own family, I have been encouraged, inspired and poured into. I got to attend the IECA conference, celebrate the achievements of mentees, receive support and advice about the work of Barrier Breakers, and visit family in the Midwest!

IECA Conference

Before heading off to the IECA Conference last Sunday, I attended the Princeton Prize In Race Relations virtual Ceremony which recognizes and rewards high school students who have undertaken significant efforts to advance racial equity and understanding in their schools and communities. It was really amazing getting to hear from these inspiring young people - the future leaders paving the way for diversity and inclusion! 

The first part of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) conference, after checking into my beautiful hotel room for the week, was a members-only reception. I connected with so many people that I haven’t seen in a while including Jeff Cutler - a friend who was in my first ever Barrier Breakers law school application bootcamp but decided to work in educational consulting with his mom instead. 

Monday was an exciting day because… my buttons arrived!  By the end of the conference about 25-40% of attendees were wearing my ‘I support Barrier Breakers’ buttons,  including some vendors. (Got to love some PR)

We then had the opening ceremony where we heard encouraging talks from the likes of Jamie Beaton - author of Accepted! : Secrets to Gaining Admission to the World's Top Universities’ and then I went to a really great session on marketing and getting more clients, which I was definitely taking notes in! 

Afterward, I went to the IECA foundation event where I was delighted to see my amazing business client and mentee Attayah! It was so great having her there and really heartwarming to see how welcoming the association was towards her and how well she integrated. Attayah specializes in working with underrepresented students applying to graduate programmes in the social sciences. (If you're interested in collaborating with her, you can reach her by email! - attayah@thestorystrategist.co )

We have a tradition at the foundation event where the event turns into a dance party! So I started the wobble which turned into all other kinds of line dances! The DJ was definitely not expecting our group to be dancing but we loved having fun while raising money for charity. Special thanks to Barrier Breakers’ Board member Michele Evard for sponsoring my ticket to the Foundation event and in general being a wonderful ambassador for Barrier Breakers at the conference! 

I’ve been part of this association for 4 years now, and so much of my career can be traced back to the encouragement and support received from IECA about my advocacy work. They have provided me with so many opportunities such as writing articles and presenting at conferences and many of my fellow members are donors to Barrier Breakers (whom we could not do our work without the support of!)

I spent so much of the conference deepening relationships with people I love but don’t often get a chance to talk to. It encompassed many fruitful conversations and encouragement from friends and truly, this conference refreshed my soul in so many ways. I got to have dinners and brunches continually with people I loved and I also really enjoyed talking to colleges at the college fairs. We spoke about the Break into Law Conference and other ways we can support their pre-law students. I also remind them that Barrier Breakers offers general college counseling for all students, not just students interested in law school, which I think a lot of people often forget!

My time at the conference concluded with dinner with a wonderful group of women on Wednesday night and lunch with my friend Sarah - a Jesus-loving disability advocate and entrepreneur, on Thursday. (which by the way, you should listen to my podcast interview episode with Sarah if you haven’t already done so!)

On arrival back home on Thursday it was really great to see both my boyfriend and my younger sister who is going to be staying with me for the month of May!

Support Systems

Friday was full of connecting with people in the philanthropy development and fundraising space. I am SO grateful for these connections because truly, I need coaching on how to bring funding into our organization not only to continue the work that we’re doing but also to expand it. I feel as though in this season, God is illuminating so much to me that I've had questions about - putting people in my path who can help me navigate working with firms and help me understand what they’re looking for, something that I’ve been struggling with for 2 years. Another thing that I have been struggling with is alumni engagement - how to stay connected and add value to their lives without adding something else to their plate. I have had the pleasure of having some discussions with former students over the past month that have illuminated answers to this concern! 

In full transparency, it’s been really difficult getting donations. It’s been really hard to raise the amount of donations and funding that we need to be sustainable. It’s such an answered prayer to finally be connected with people who genuinely want to help me and support me to reach the next level. It’s great to finally be able to see the path to bridge the gap of what I do not know. It’s so important that we lean into the people around us who are able to inform us and fill in the gaps of knowledge that we have!

Family Time & Student Celebration

This past weekend was extremely exciting as we got to travel to Chicago for the graduation of Jasmeene - one of our oldest Barrier Breakers students! Jasmeene was a boot camp instructor at Barrier Breakers for a little while during her time in law school which helped our growth and scalability. We really appreciate her support, so when she invited us to her graduation at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, it was a no-brainer, we were going! 

Being in Chicago also enabled me to see my aunt, uncle, and cousin who is graduating from high school this week.On Sunday, we paid my grandma in Cassopolis a surprise visit for Mother’s Day! She was so overwhelmed with happiness when we called her to say we were outside that she started crying, and it was so heart-warming. 

We then concluded this sweet family-oriented weekend with a visit to Dowajaic, Michigan, to see my Uncle and enjoyed a lovely dinner there. It’s always sweet getting to spend time with family that you don’t see very often and I am going into the new week super refreshed as a result!