Vida Smith sharing her story of survival and struggle from domestic violence and being a homeless mother to a successful PhD candidate truly inspired me — as I listened to her story as part of Family Promise SPBC’s Sharing Survival Stories Saturday. My role at Family Promise is to interview the storyteller and prep them for going live or being recorded. Over the course of two days/six hours, I was enthralled with Vida’s story of leaving her homeland of Ghana and moving to the United States after getting married to a seemingly nice American man. Once here, she suffered terrible…

One of the most effective Silver Fox outreach efforts is the Tiki Market Mini Sessions. This allows direct interaction with Seniors in the target zipcodes. I gathered more that 30 prospects over 2 days and converted 11 into clients and great prospects. Silver Fox provided more than 20 hours of complementary training to Seniors.

Providing fitness services to Seniors is vital. The human body “needs to keep moving to keep moving.” Healthy Seniors are an inspiration and helping Black Seniors increase their health and physicality is an act of Sankofa, or “going back to correct what has not been done”, for those of us who help make this happen. Creating Silver Fox Elite Fitness is the most important work I have done in my many, many years as a working adult. Silver Fox is committed to making the Golden Years the best years and will continue to tear down the challenges of Ageism and…

In my mini grant experience it has beyond awesome! My first experience was involving the youth! I was to teach the kids about photography! We went out into the Glades and we share and compare personal feelings to the photos that were taken! We discussed how a picture has so many different meanings it was all about how you were able to look at it. I was able to give them a real hands on experience before COVID! My current mini grant has to do with getting back to basics! We are actually in process of building a garden retreat!…

Hello, I’d like to update you about the Youth Hydroponic Farming and Mentoring Project 2. On November 10, we kicked off where we held a mentoring session with youth at the Lindsay Davis Center, the youth empowerment program. We spoke about a wide range of topics ranging from healthy eating to food production , and also we went to address some issues going on during the pandemic right now. On November 17, we went outside and then we began to construct the hydroponic tank. It was very windy that day. We did not put any water in that tank and…

The mini grant allowed me to get my “back of store” in order, which includes signing up for and using a new streamlined sales funnel/project creator (HoneyBook), which has made the proposal, contact, and payment progress 1000x smoother. This also makes my business, SPARC Guidance, more professional and helped me establish contracts for trainings/coaching sessions with Early Head Start via the Early Learning Coalition. I am also now able to offer family coaching sessions and I hope to expand SPARC to the School District next.

One client, Mr. L, is a former boxer who truly understood the importance of fitness. I could see a difference just in the few sessions we had.

I recently taught a Drum Circle Class at Vita Nova. Everyone learned the basic skills so quickly, leading to a very fluid session. I enjoyed getting to know everyone’s stories and how music played a role in their lives. My favorite moment was when each person shared a song that meant a lot to them; they then tried to duplicate the beat on their drums with everyone else following. I would definitely be open to working with Vita Nova in the future, they are an amazing group of people doing impactful work in our community.

The Healthier Jupiter Mini-Grant served as a catalyst for our organization to bring the benefits of boxing – exercise, discipline, and fun – to young students throughout the Jupiter area. The boxing program brought together students from all walks of life. The best part was seeing students laugh and learn lessons that they will be able to take with them for the rest of their lives. I believe I speak for other volunteers and coaches when I say it is incredibly rewarding to see a student experience a light bulb moment when they see how they can apply lessons learned…

This new logo better represent Silver Fox Elite Fitness. It’s beautiful.

I am so grateful to have received my first ever grant from Healthier Neighbors in such a time of need. Also, I am grateful that my introduction to applying for a grant was smooth. As a recipient of the grant it has truly allowed me to make the necessary enhancements to my business for growth. During a pandemic so many people had to pivot personally and professionally, and my grant experience allowed me to do both. Not only was I applying for funds, I had to help others understand the importance of what GLOWrious Bath & Body was on a…

This was about a most exhilarating class with incredible students. As an observer, I loved the interaction that the instructor personally had with the students, as well as with the coaches Daniel and Phil and the excellent workout to begin the class with. After watching all of you, I am going to implement such workout at home for myself. I loved the idea of a student practicing with a racket and a balloon. Tossing the ball against the wall for eye/hand coordination and walking the dog (ball) around the room and chair. I just cannot say enough about the satisfaction…

Since receiving the mini grant, I have been looking for other ways to encourage ladies to work on their well-being outside of just working out. So I have started to incorporate Fit Mom Tips of the Week, as well as healthy meal options, and then just advice on how to care for yourself as a woman with self-esteem, with confidence, being able to accept where you are now and how you can make yourself better, not just for you, but for your family as a whole, and just helping women to work on themselves as a whole package.

Thanks to the help of Community Partners of Southern Florida, I’m able to construct both indoor and outdoor virtual fitness studios so I can continue to serve seniors in spite of the dangers of the COVID pandemic.

While personally experiencing the disconnect from family, friends, community and church, I often thought about our Seniors and what they might be going through due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and Social Distancing. In discussing this with others and realizing some Seniors are further restricted by vision, hearing and mobility impairments we felt the need was urgent. So we sought to find a solution to this issue and to help our most precious citizens cope during this time to avoid isolation and loneliness thereby avoiding negative effects on their mental and social wellbeing. As we investigated possible solutions, we discovered voice…

After receiving the mini grant for a small business start-up, we were able to get all of the required licenses, as well as do a lot of marketing pieces: getting the logo created, doing business cards, flyers, etc. And we were able to present our first contract proposal and we are currently awaiting the final results for doing property management for a small building inside of an HOA community.

I recently was really worried about the artist submissions for the ball. At first we have only 12 submissions. Then we had 24 submissions as of March 26. I was worried that we would not have a lot of people to sign up (since the Call to Art was over with on the 5th of April). Two days before the call ended, I was notified that we had over 108 submissions! This was all thanks to the marketing from myself, the reposting from different orgs like BeWell and the Arts Warehouse. I also spent time everyday emailing different artists and…