1. Internships

The Terrie Williams Agency “Boot Camp” has guided more then 500 youth and young professionals over the years. Internships are also being established with businesses and corporations all across the country.

2. Mentoring

Mentor: A trusted counselor or guide.

The Stay Strong Foundation utilizes Terrie’s unparalleled inventory of national contacts to enlist individual support for the Foundation’s efforts and programs. Every person who calls Terrie or the Foundation (dozens each week) is asked to join the Stay Strong youth movement by agreeing to mentor a young person and encourage mentoring among their colleagues, families and friends. Young people, in turn, are encouraged to give back to someone else. That’s how we keep the cycle going.

Our mentoring “criteria” include:

• Keeping in touch with the young person being mentored by sending e-mail messages, cards, books, or other information and articles that would be of interest
• Being available to provide advice or counsel as needed and as schedules permit
• Bringing the young person along on periodic outings, dinners, etc. (see Terrie “Plus One”)
• Taking a keen interest in the professional development of the young person being mentored

Terrie and all who work on behalf of SSF consistently act as advocates to ensure a youth presence and perspective in the various panel discussions, seminars and workshops they attend or work with throughout the year. “It’s not enough to just talk about supporting our young people,” says Terrie. “We have to get them personally involved with these events. Their voices need to be heard.”

As a highly sought after speaker, Terrie utilizes her dozens of speaking engagements each year to bring her specialized brand of mentoring and her inspirational and empowering messages to thousands of young people all across the country. 

3. Shadowing

If an ongoing mentoring effort is not possible, the Shadowing Program utilizes Terrie’s relationships to enlist friends, business executives, and established professionals to allow a young person to “shadow” them for a day.

Youth get to experience a professional business environment and gain knowledge into the workings and daily routines of a corporate office. Young people can never aspire to anything if they aren’t exposed to new and different worlds.

The Stay Strong Foundation will ensure (through written letters by mentors or those who have allowed a young person to shadow them) that hundreds of young people will be mentored or allowed to shadow each year.

4. Terrie Plus One

Terrie Plus One is an outside-the-office opportunity for young people to join Terrie (as well as her colleagues in the business world) as she/they attend black-tie fundraisers, corporate and private dinners, movie premiers, sports events, awards show, speaking engagements, and other special events.

It’s an opportunity for youth to be exposed to, and personally connect with, different environments and other role models. Terrie always encourages other business professionals to do the same—and that they can do this without undue stress or impacting on the time they never seem to have anyway.

The message is simple: by taking a kid with you to a function you were going to attend anyway, you are providing immeasurable value to a young person’s education and learning experience.