It took about 3 weeks to help him do it all by himself. But, I believe in the long run this small accomplishment will help lil HE-MAN a long way. Tell me what you think of this VIDEO??
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Drill Sergeant DAD
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010Life or Death Entrepreneur..
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010So I was reading the HARVARD Business REVIEW. And the title is “Think like an ENTREPRENEUR”
I highly recommend educating yourself daily.
But, I want you to read a email I got from a Student at a Magnet School I spoke at. :
I was born April 23, 1991 in New York City, New York. My mother was a single mother of one child untill I came along. My brother’s father became rich and decided he was better on his own. My father had passed away two months before my birthdate. My first memories are about my grandmother. She took care of me while my mother worked and went to John Jay University in Bronx, New York. She was my mother figure untill the age of three when my mother had to stop attending school because she was pregnant with my sister. My Mother was a child of three. My her brother, my uncle, is currently a police officer in Temple Terrace.
I Attended a community elementary school. I was a A student in all my classes and was in advanced classes. When I was in fifth grade my brother and I always nagged my mother to move us to Florida. We thought it was paradise. When the tragedy of 9/11 took place my mother decided it was time to move. I started junior high school at Farnell Middle School. I was in regular classes and had good grades when I started untill I left for Benito Middle School. We didnt have the money to live where we were to so we moved into a town home on 42nd and Fletcher. There I got involved in teen activities like going to movies and skateparks. When I started eighth grade I was placed in Davidsen Middle School. My mother had found a new job with better pay. She bought a middle class house. Davidsen Middle School was the school in which I was greatly influenced. I started in honor classes but did not do well. I was told I had potential so because I did they wouldn’t lower me to a advance class. I flunked the first try at eighth grade. I was just back from New York in the year of 2005 when I was beginning eighth grade for the second try. My best friend at the time was starting high school at Alonso. When the beginning of the school year started we made some choices that weren’t so good. I had purchased eight hundred dollars worth of clothes to last me for the year. My favorite colors were white. blue, and black. So all my clothes were those three colors. He had met up with some drug dealers who were in a nationwide gang known as Crip. (Crazy Real Insane People) He started to sell drugs for them as a way for him to make money. He was such an influence to me that I began to do the same. One day he asked me if I wanted to join the gang and I thought it was a good idea. We started regretting the time we told them we wanted to join even before we joined. Once we told them we wanted to join , there was no turning back or atleast any way I could besides death. My bestfriend and I were told to fight each other as if the opponent was a rival gang member. We couldn’t do so because we were good friends so instead we faught without trying to win. They were furious and in the middle of the fight they ran towards us and punched my friend in the face and me on my back. The member who hit me was the General or the guy who lead the gang. While I was on the ground he was kicking at me with steel-toe Timberland shoes. When he sat me up he began to yell at my face curses of all kinds. He drew a switchblade out of his pocket and threatened to kill me but didnt attack me with it. Instead he kicked my face and I blacked out at the moment. When I got up he told us to fight again. Another one of them said we couldn’t fight because we were hurt bad. We got recruited into the gang that day. Being involved with the gang led to bad news with everyone. I stopped doing good in school. My grades went to the lowest they have ever been in my life. I eventually got arrested and charged for a petit theft. I was in Walmart shoplifting a fifty dollar video game on Christmas Eve. That day when I was wearing the hand cuffs on my wrist and sitting in the sheriff’s car, I realized I was going the wrong way. It was a revelation for me. I was sitting in the car and it was dark. No light was around anywhere because it got late. I was looking at the handcuffs and I saw a bright light reflecting back. I had no idea what it was reflecting from. I thought it was a sign from God to be honest with you. I decided I was tired of claiming to be an atheiust and decided to be reborn as a new creation. All my wrong doings were done.
The year of 2006 began and I was alone with no friends because I stopped my contact with everyone who was of bad influence to me. Which was everyone I knew.I had to make new friends that would benefit me in a positive way. I began attending The Manifestation Church with some friends from school. After a month or so they discontinued going so I had to find a different church. I started attending at C.F.O.C the church that changed my life. (Christian Family Outreach Center) They taught me how to be a christian in my everyday life. They taught me almost everything I know about Christianity in general. Finally I began to attend Without Walls International Church because my girlfriend’s mom wanted to check the church out and see if she liked it. We did both and now we go there weekly. I’m now enrolled in the Academy of Hospitality at D.W.Waters Career Center. I decided to do Real Estate not too long ago. I read the book that was given to everyone at Without Walls. It’s Why We Want You To Be Rich by:Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki. I liked the idea of investing rather than saving. I figured investing in houses and buildings would be the most rewarding so I chose it as my career. The best part is I love the idea because I can work for myself and be my own boss. I take full control of what im spending money on, what im getting money for and how much.
This Story is the beginning of a Millionaire Entrepreneur!!
Tell me what you think of this Teenager? and there Life?
Finding International Buyers
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010International buyers are here and READY to BUY properties at HIGH CAP Rates NOW!! Check out a EMAIL I just got from a International Buyer from Spain.
“My name is ——— and I from Belgium but living in Spain. I had a conversation with you on the phone about the ad for 2 condos 70000usd.
I am interested in this property.”
If you were a BUYER what Cap Rate would you be looking for? And why?
Check out this link with High Cap Rates: Click Here:
Youngest UFC fighter Alex “THE TERROR” 8yr old
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010My son is 8yrs old and yes this is a real photo of him taken at Busch Gardens with my iphone. He is currently training MMA.
What do you think of this PHOTO??
Motivating 2,000 kids with Franklin Cruz
Sunday, August 8th, 2010This event was AWESOME with CAPITAL “A”. Whenever you have the opportunity to speak in the lives of tomorrow’s LEADERS, Business OWNERS, etc.
I have been speaking to “tomorrow’s youth” for years And when I was asked by Hillsborough County “SERVE” to speak it was a “NO BRAIN”ER”.
What “TOPICS” do you think I spoke about at this EVENT??
Hope for Homes Project RECAP
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
Letter from the Robinson Family Thanking US at HFH
ObamaCare Taxes Home Sales
Monday, July 26th, 2010“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes,”
President Obama, September 12, 2008
Beginning January 1, 2013, ObamaCare imposes a 3.8% Medicare tax on unearned income, including the sale of single family homes, townhouses, co-ops, condominiums, and even rental income.
In February 2010, 5.02 million homes were sold, according to the National Association of Realtors. On any given day, the sale of a house, townhome, condominium, co-op, or income from a rental property can push middle-income families over the $250,000 threshold and slam them with a new tax they can’t afford.
This new ObamaCare tax is the first time the government will apply a 3.8 percent tax on unearned income. This new tax on home sales and unearned income and other Medicare taxes raise taxes more than $210 billion to pay for ObamaCare. The National Association of Realtors called this new Medicare tax on unearned income “destructive” and “ill-advised” and warned it would hurt job creation. 
How do you feel about this NEW HOME SALES TAX??
Home and Life Remodeled
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
What Craziness this weekend was. We did a 2 month Rehab in 2 1/2 days!! Yes 2 1/2 days!! We worked a 56hr schedule. And it was so worth it!! Thank you so much to all the Volunteers!!
It was crazy we had a lady that read the article on Friday .. Came to the Job Site and said what could I buy to help. And bought the family a brand new STOVE. The family never had a STOVE or HOT WATER EVER!! Some may people to thank!!
FreedomSoft
Kane’s
Amoroso Cabinets: Doug your the MAN!!
All Pro Signs
St Pete Times
countless more and Volunteers thank you!!
this post someone said:
Dan Auito
Habitat from Insanity. Good work Franklin!
What do you think of this?
Hope for Homes Project.
Friday, July 16th, 2010Workers will help Tampa woman find hope in home repairs – St. Petersburg Times
This is the Non-Profit that Myself Franklin Cruz and Jason Sowell Started “Hope for Homes Project” to give Hope to people that can afford to stay in there home, but can’t afford to fix there home.
www.HopeforHomesProject.org to DONATE.
Here is the First Article from TBO.com read below the full article:
Workers will help Tampa woman find hope in home repairs
By Elisabeth Parker, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, July 16, 2010
[WILLIE J. ALLEN JR. | Times]
Workers will replace the roof and sinks, rewire, paint and more at Robinson-James’ home at Caracas and 32nd streets.
TAMPA — She sleeps on a broken couch by the front door with a hammer.
Inside, three sons are in their beds, two granddaughters in hers.
Sharon Robinson-James is holding off a neighborhood.
She has nearly raised seven kids by herself in the blue house on the corner of Caracas and 32nd streets where she grew up. Drugs and other crime crouch outside. Sometimes they’ve slipped in.
There was the boyfriend, she said, who got her into dealing cocaine, which took her away to prison for five years. There was a gang that killed her son as he walked to a store one night nearly three years ago.
Now Robinson-James, 46, finds her strength on dog-eared pages of a Bible opened to Psalm 100. She has circled the fifth verse: For the Lord is good and his love endures forever.
She locks herself in her bedroom and prays on a white plastic bench next to a closet with blown-up pictures of her dead son. He is wearing a white suit. She turns over her troubles to God. Then she hopes he hears her prayers.
This weekend, she will know for sure whether he has listened to at least one.
• • •
The roof on the house her parents left her is leaking, and electrical wires dangle outside along a wall. Another live wire, on a kitchen wall, leads to the garage. Robinson-James uses a broomstick to turn the light switch on and off.
She warns her granddaughters not to touch: “It’ll bite you.”
They live with her, along with her three sons. She patches together a budget from child support, food stamps, and by cleaning houses and doing yard work. It’s not enough to keep up with the house.
The master bedroom is a teenager’s cave. A ceiling fan swings crookedly. Its socket won’t hold a light bulb. Water has damaged the bathroom walls and left it musty.
D’Andre Coachman was 16 in 2007 when he reluctantly became the man of this house. His brother, Andre Coachman Jr., had been 19.
They were walking to a store together, still in sight of their home, when a pickup truck full of teens veered onto the curb. At least three rained gunfire at the brothers. The teens had been out for revenge against someone from Andre’s neighborhood in connection with the beating of one of their cousins in state prison. They didn’t know Andre, who had no part in the neighborhood gangs, and he didn’t know them. One of them shot him in the head.
Two of them, a 15-year-old and 17-year-old, were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Another 15-year-old got a 28-year prison sentence.
D’Andre doesn’t talk about that night. He and two sisters and a younger brother got tattoos to remember Andre.
Their grief poured out on bedroom walls in crayon. Wings encase their words: Live in the Sky. Man I love you. RIP.
Their mother was in prison at the time, the second instance when the family suffered the consequences of her choices.
In 1996, Robinson-James went to prison for 4 1/2 years, charged with trafficking in cocaine. Her mother had cared for the children until she was released in 2001. But her mother died in 2005, and a brother followed in 2006. In 2007, when she was caught with a firearm and charged as a felon in possession, she went back to prison, and her older children cared for the younger ones. She had kept the gun to protect her kids, she said. Now, she keeps a hammer.
The day Andre died, a letter to his mother arrived at the prison.
“You’ll be proud of me. I got a car and I’m still paying all the bills,” he wrote.
Days passed before a chaplain told Robinson-James he had been shot. Authorities allowed her to go to the funeral. She had always told the former Middleton High football player that he was the man of the house. He liked to dress in suits and had worked 10-hour days in a cafe at the University of South Florida to support the family.
His mother was angry with God. But one day, she said, Mary, the mother of Jesus, came to her in a dream.
She had watched her own son beaten down, suffering and dying, Mary said. She reminded Robinson-James that Andre had been God’s child before he was hers.
• • •
Earlier this year, a group of people were looking for someone to help. They needed a family with a structurally sound home in need of repairs, someone who would have a broader impact in the community. Led by Jason Sowell, a Tampa man who founded faith-based nonprofit Current of Tampa Bay, they formed the Hope for Homes Project.
Positive Spin, an organization that helps people in need, recommended Robinson-James. She had turned her life around since leaving prison. She’s a hard worker and devoted to her children, the people at Positive Spin said. She counsels neighborhood children to stay out of trouble, using her experiences as a cautionary tale.
Hope for Homes organizers figure their efforts here will expand beyond Robinson-James’ corner lot home and beautify the street. This will be their first rehab.
Last month, group members took Robinson-James to lunch and told her their plans. They would replace the leaky roof. Rewire the house. Replace toilets, bathroom and kitchen sinks, cabinets and countertops, lights and water-damaged walls. Paint, inside and out. Repair the porches and bring in new dishes, beds and furniture. Many of the materials were given by area companies. They estimate the value of the makeover at $18,000, all from private donations.
Robinson-James remembers the day she heard the news. On the way home she asked Brian Butler, an organizer who was driving, to pull over so she could catch her breath. She knew God answers prayers, but this one she could barely believe.
Work crews plan to start today. Donations will pay for the family to stay in a hotel for the weekend. They have tickets to Busch Gardens for Saturday and the Florida Aquarium on Sunday. At 5:30 p.m. Sunday, a stretch limo provided by Grand Dames Car Service will bring them to a completely renovated home.
Most everything will be new. But painters will save one of the crayon memorials to Andre, the one with the circle that says “live in the sky.”
Elisabeth Parker can be reached at eparker@sptimes or (813) 226-3431.
Fast facts
Hope for Homes
To donate to future projects, visit homesbycurrent.org or call Vistra Communications at (813) 961-4700.
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