The Board Members

Mission

Sista

Train and stimulate women and others in career building, work life balance, health, arts, and culture. Strengthening of  family dynamics through life coaching and guidance. Also, build skills and talents in a positive manner.

Girls

Strategically build up the skills and talents of adolescence and teenage girls. Also, empower them to build positive self image, reduce obesity, encourage life planning, and provide them mentoring.

Friends

We will build bridges with positive growth and establish healthy relationships with others including non-ethnic groups, government leaders, and teachers.

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Melverta Wilkins has vision and insight to bring young women and girls together to promote empowerment, sisterhood, and sharing. In October 2013, inspired by her own experiences Melverta Wilkins completed all the formal paperwork to start the organization Sista Girls and Friends. Sista Girls and Friends started as an organization to train and stimulate women in career building, work life balance, health, arts, culture and to combat poverty. The mission is to strengthen family dynamics through sharing with each other, life coaching, and mentoring. Sista Girls and Friends started in Decatur, Illinois serving women and girls through group circles sharing real life experiences, educating, and lots of support for each other. Connecting to serve in SGF’s Sista Circle. Sista Circle has evolved to personal mentoring where Melverta Wilkins uses her own network to match women with other women, to help others through personal mentoring and support. As we build our own personal networks and connect these networks, we begin to grow and provide increased services to women, mentors, and to all who seek assistance.


Personal and Professional Mentoring for Young Girls
Sista Girls and Friends quickly evolved to begin its program for high school girls. In September 2014 Melverta Wilkins applied for a 501c3 for nonprofit status and received nonprofit status in January 2015.

Programming begin for the Sass and Sophistication Mentoring and Charm School.

This inaugural program began at MacArthur High School with 17 young ladies. These ladies were matched with mentors. Immediately the group began to connect with the challenges these young ladies face with self-esteem, bullying, lack of vision, and the overall need for assistance to get to the next level of their lifelong journey.  Sista Girls and Friends were there to assist them with these challenges by giving support, building a trust network, and open and honest conversation throughout the 14 week program. There were 14 young ladies who attended the process through to the end and have a lifelong change experience. These young ladies are instrumental in helping lead the next group of young ladies in 2016. SGF will add grades 5-8, and 9-10 levels to a Prestige program. The ladies from Sass and Sophistication will help train and mentor through the talents and skills they have obtained.  

Youth Mentoring for Boys

After great success in offering a place for women and girls to develop and network both professionally and personally, Melverta Wilkins recognized the need in the community to assist young men in sports who have challenges with focus, discipline, achieving high grade levels, and reading. A program for young boys grades 5-9, has been created. These young men are offered mentoring, tutoring, and coaching all while learning the skills of basketball.


Today, Sister Girl and Friends provides a robust program offering support and mentoring to women through Sista Circle. We have programs for young men and young ladies that involve mentoring, social skills, networking, and positive life building.

SGF offers an annual Fundraiser which promotes positive achievement in the community by awarding women of excellence. There are several workshop and conference ideas in the creation stage including a youth conference coming August 2016.

We sincerely believe in what we do and the vision that is being shared. SGF is a forward thinking organization. It is an organization in which you can connect and make friends and increase networks.  We proudly believe through working together and through empowerment  we can build positive families and decrease poverty. We will do this one woman one girl at a time.

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