By ASHLYN TOLEDO

Jose Fernandez has built a name for himself in Miami’s competitive real estate industry. But it’s his work with charitable organizations around the world that has really set him apart, earning him the distinction of being named Humanitarian of the Year by Florida Realtors.

Fernandez has always been passionate about helping others. Even as a child growing up in Puerto Rico, he remembers raising money for disadvantaged children in other parts of the world.  And while many have donated their money generously, Fernandez has given an incredible amount of time to the causes he champions.

“I really have a servant’s heart,” Fernandez said. “I think the most precious thing a person can give is their time, because it’s the only commodity that you can never get back.”

Fernandez studied hospitality management at the Chaplin School and eventually made his way into Real Estate. He was drawn to the flexibility it gave him because he felt that it would afford him more time to pursue other projects and passions. But, he took a great deal of his skills and training with him in his new career.

“I think in any career, whatever it is, you can use the skills and the knowledge that you learn in your life,” he said. “I look back at all the classes that I took at FIU – Accounting, Marketing, statistics – I have used them all one way or another in my business.”

In 1999, after arriving at FIU as an international exchange student, Fernandez began sponsoring a Honduran boy named Jairo through Children International. As fate would have it, he soon formed a friendship with a Honduran classmate. Together, they traveled to Honduras where Fernandez was able to meet Jairo. The following year, they recruited a larger group of friends from FIU to take 1500 pounds of school supplies to 1200 kids at  Jairo’s school in Honduras.

In 2009, Fernandez went back to Honduras and visited an orphanage for 33 children living with HIV or AIDS. He became involved with Fundacion Amor y Vida, a nonprofit organization dedicated to caring for those children, and has been actively supporting them ever since. To date, he has donated more than 1000 hours of his time and raised nearly $200,000 for the cause.

In November of 2015, after 14 months of hard work and a seredipitous meeting with the Honduran ambassador, Fernandez managed to take all 33 children on an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney’s Magic Kingdom and Sea World. Organizing a project that large, requiring cooperation from travel authorities in both the US and Honudras, as well as nearly 200 individual people, is not a task that most people would take on. 

“I have shared this story with immigration attorneys, and they don’t believe that it’s true,” he said. “I have to show them the pictures and the videos for them to believe me.”

Fernandez remembers getting the call from one of his customers who needed to find a new tenant for their rental property. After asking a few questions, he learned that the current tenant had just been appointed as American ambassador to the Republic of Honduras – an incredible stroke of luck for Fernandez who was so heavily involved with the orphanage there. With a little bit of leg work, he managed to secure a meeting with the ambassador. When he shared the work he was doing in Honduras and his plans to bring the kids on a trip to the U.S., the ambassador was hooked. It took a lot more work and a great deal of finesse – something the star realtor has in abundance – but, eventually, all the pieces fell into place.

In addition to the incredible work he has done in Honduras, Fernandez has gone on several missionary trips with his church, including one to Uganda where he helped women start their own businesses. He also volunteers regularly with the Salvation Army Rehabilitation Center and Mejorando tu Salud – a health fair benefitting underserved areas in Miami – and has organized Red Day at Keller Williams, the real estate firm where he works, to help children in low-income communities.

 

September 21, 2016