ABOUT US
sIR BRANDON LEWIS
VISIONARY & INNOVATOR AT HELM OF SUMMER WORD CUP™ (Soccer Player & World Cup Enthusiast)
Sir Brandon Lewis represents what’s possible when soccer, discipline, and academic commitment work together to shape a young man who not only rises, but returns to bring others with him. A Pennsylvania native, Penn State University Business Management major, and now UK-trained soccer player and enthusiast, Sir Brandon embodies the journey from public school classrooms as an early adolescent, to international soccer fields. His story shows every boy that when you read, you lead. Sir Brandon brings both visibility and credibility. He makes literacy aspirational—showing that athletes read, leaders read, dreamers read. He turns a stereotype on its head: books and sports are not opposites, they are teammates. Discipline, focus, and faith fuel both.
His presence makes reading relatable, cool, and powerful. He models balance, responsibility, and determination. He proves that sharpening your mind opens the same doors as sharpening your skills. And he demonstrates that true leadership means reaching back, using his platform to lift the boys who will follow him.
Brandon is the founder of Reach Black Boys™, the co-creator of INCREDIBLE ME (a boys-only book club), and the visionary at the helm of SUMMER WORD CUP.
A five-time Dean’s List honoree, he maintains a 3.5+ GPA. His studies focus on leadership, management, and communication, skills that translate directly to his growth as a student, athlete, and business leader, on and off the field.
Sir Brandon is also a 2026 Young Men Making a Difference Honoree, an award that honors the legacy of Malcolm X, presented by Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Hughes in partnership with the Urban League of Philadelphia.
Learn more about Sir Brandon.
CYNTHIA GREER
ILLUSTRATOR, SUMMER WORD CUP™
(Photographer, 1996 U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team)
Cynthia Greer is a visual journalist and illustrator whose work bridges news, culture, and community through thoughtful, accessible design. Over the course of a decades-long career at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she worked from the mid-1990s until 2025, she helped define how visual storytelling lives inside a modern and bustling newsroom.
Her masterful work spans editorial illustration, digital and print design, and widely recognized interactive features, particularly in sports, where her illustrations often move beyond the page to become tools for engagement during some of Philadelphia’s most historic moments, from shareable graphics to downloadable coloring experiences.
Working within the demands of a fast-paced newsroom, Greer brought clarity, precision, and a deep understanding of audience to every piece. Her approach balances creativity with function, ensuring that each visual not only serves the story, but extends its reach.
Her work doesn’t just reflect the moment, it gives people a way to step into it. Cynthia is the illustrator for SUMMER WORD CUP.
Learn more about Cynthia.
“I started shooting soccer to practice my action shots with a motor drive. All the other sports were impossible to access. I went to college with someone in the office of the local indoor soccer team, and my life would never be the same. I hooked up with a trade publication in California feeding them pics from the middle of the country. The publishers were influential in attracting FIFA’s World Cup in 1994, so I feel like my influence in the often over-looked sport started back then. I traveled and adventured and supplied different orgs with soccer photos in the U.S. and Europe.”
- Cynthia Greer
SHALEAH LACHÉ SUTTON
OFFICIAL THOUGHT PARTNER & CO-INNOVATOR, SUMMER WORD CUP™ (Soccer Mom)
Shaleah Laché Sutton doesn’t just build things—she anchors them. An unconventional leader that’s never waited for permission or an election. For nearly two decades, she’s led work that centers Black girls and women, shaped movements, facilitated successful collaborations, and built platforms that last. She’s been strategic, consistent, and most importantly, invested, long before titles or trends. Her influence lives in the doors she’s opened, the legacies she’s helped shape, and the people still moving because of it.
She’s the brilliant force behind the mission-driven UNIQUELY YOU SUMMIT™ (an organization she started in 2009 at just 29 years old), FOR THE LOVE OF BLACK GIRLS®, and a long list of rooms, moments, and missions where she’s moved things forward, quietly and with intention.
Her instinct for purposeful connection, what some call dot-connecting, isn’t networking; it’s vision mapping. And her skill in negotiation isn’t just about getting a “yes”, it’s about leverage and maximization of purpose—approached with the kind of sophisticated clarity that turns momentum into legacy.
With recognitions from Forbes.com, PECO, YWCA, Philadelphia City Council, and the Pennsylvania State Senate, Shaleah isn’t new to impact—she’s just not performing it. She moves deliberately, builds patiently, and owns every inch of what she creates. Whether advising creatives, producing summits, moving policy, in the groundwork with startups and grassroots organizations, curating experiences, supporting athletes, or helping brands find clarity, her work is rooted. She’s created frameworks, spaces, and experiences that didn’t exist before, and set a standard others now follow.
A proud Spelman College graduate with a degree in Political Science, lifelong champion for Black girls, devoted mother of college-age twins, and a proud soccer mom, Shaleah is establishing a new blueprint for purposeful influence, leadership, legacy, and cultural investment, one that now takes shape through the 1526 FIRM™.
Shaleah is the co-creator of INCREDIBLE ME (a boys-only book club) alongside her son, co-founder of Reach Black Boys™, and official thought partner and co-innovator of SUMMER WORD CUP.
Learn more about Shaleah.
THE MAKING OF AN UNFOLDING STORY:
SUMMER WORD CUP™ began as an ambitious idea between mother and son: Sir Brandon Lewis, a UK-trained soccer player, Penn State student, founder of REACH BLACK BOYS, and Shaleah Laché Sutton, strategist, builder, and longtime architect of youth-centered experiences.
Together, they asked a different question: What if the global energy of FIFA World Cup 2026 could become a pathway to reading, confidence, and possibility for young Black American boys while introducing them to the beautiful game and the worlds it can open?
What followed required far more than program development. Together, they built a literacy model that moves between sport, identity, culture, and community, translating a global moment into something deeply local. The work demanded coalition building, partnership development, experience design, and one shared belief: good enough has never been enough for Black boys.
Sir Brandon’s path has stretched from DELCO to Liverpool through soccer, leadership, and service. Today, he balances higher education, athletics, and youth literacy work, recently earning a 4.0 semester GPA at Penn State. He understands discipline not as a talking point, but as practice. Shaleah has spent nearly two decades building platforms, programs, and opportunities rooted in one conviction: deeply invested children become adults who see possibility differently.
In early March 2026, during the launch of Sir Brandon’s INCREDIBLE ME Boys-Only Book Club, Shaleah was searching for a Jalen Hurts coloring page for a small group of boys when she found an illustration she loved. Cynthia Greer’s name sat quietly in the corner. Hoping for a clearer PDF, she reached out assuming it would be a one-time exchange.
Someone else may have settled for the blurry version. She didn’t. Excellence for children has always mattered to both her and Sir Brandon.
What began as a small request became a relationship. Cynthia, a respected illustrator whose work helped shape visual storytelling during her 30-year career at The Philadelphia Inquirer, would later become part of the visual language surrounding SUMMER WORD CUP.
Because ideas rarely become movements on vision alone. They require people willing to ask one more question, send one more email, and build with care.
SUMMER WORD CUP was built by a mother and son who have made a practice of doing exactly that.
The story is still being written.
partner with us
Our WORD CUP 2026 vision is strong, but the totality of the work requires the right partners.
From literacy and youth engagement to culturally relevant experiences shaped by soccer, story, and possibility, we need aligned partners who believe in what becomes possible when boys are engaged with intention.
Whether through funding, in-kind support, strategic collaboration, or shared opportunities, partnership helps us make this experience a reality, as well as deepen the impact and reach farther than we can alone.
If you believe in what we’re building, would love to hear from you. Partner with us. Help bring the full vision to life.