Aretha Franklin is in hospice care – CNN https://apple.news/A0GNrTbDpT-uYXm8e0g0jsw ]]>
Jazz Artist Kirk Whalum will be joined with Randy Scott, Demetrius Nabors, and other special guests.
Friday, June 15, 2018 6:00 pm – 11:00 pm
Family Victory Fellowship 19421 West Ten Mile Road, Southfield, Michigan
This is a FREE EVENT!
Limited Reserved VIP seating available which includes: VIP Seating, parking, reception with artists only $75.00
NO Outside Food, NO Outside Drinks, and NO Coolers are allowed. Bring your own lawn chairs.
Marketplace Vendor Tables Available.
http://www.jazzonthegrass.com/the-artists.html
Call: 248.354.1990 for more information
]]>Here are seven grants black women business owners should consider:
The InnovateHER Innovating for Women Business Challenge is sponsored by the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Women’s Business Ownership. Three winners are awarded $30,000 in prize money for businesses with products and services that have an impact on the lives of women and their families.
Intuit “Love A Local Business” Competition
Intuit host a competition that gives away $25,000 small business grants to businesses based on votes. The average award is $5,000, but there are larger grand prizes depending on each year’s focus. The program has given away over $1 million since inception. Check the site frequently to see when is the next round.
FedEx Opportunity Knocks Small Business Grant
Share your small-business story and enter for a chance to win the top prize–$25,000. There’s also one $15,000 winner and eight $7,500 winners. Part of the judging involves the general public voting for the finalists, so participants may promote their businesses while garnering votes.
This business plan competition is a great way for new entrepreneurs with innovative ideas to win capital for their companies in the form of prizes ranging from $5,000 to as much as $200,000 or more. This competition is aimed especially at minority entrepreneurs and is sponsored by MillerCoors.
Minority Business Development Agency
The MBDA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce that assists minorities and women in establishing and growing their businesses. On its site, you can research grants and access links to state agencies that work with women-owned businesses for funding opportunities.
National Association for the Self-Employed Growth Grants
This program allows business owners to apply for financing a particular small business need. Worth up to $4,000 each, past recipients used their growth grants to purchase computers, hire part-time help, and create marketing materials.
Awards $500 to a different women-owned business every month. At the end of each year, one of the 12 grant winners is awarded an additional $2,000. The application is relatively simple: Applicants must explain what your business is and describe what you’d do with the grant money. The foundation’s advisory board chooses the winners, looking for women with passion and a good story.
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During the conversation, the two caught up on topics surrounding the estranged relationship that has been plaguing them for years and additionally discuss victimhood and the type of reality that that mindset creates. “I had to hit rock bottom,” said Union. “I had to lose everything. For me that was my first marriage, going through the divorce process. I had to lose my show, my show was canceled, and I was having difficult relationships… It was everyone’s fault but my own.”
Claiming ownership is the key to one’s successes and failures. It allows you to take control. After getting with life coach AJ Johnson, Union soon realized that she was playing the victim. “While in the middle of working out, she would be shouting out questions and so one day she said, ‘make a happy list.’ She said, ‘tell me 10 things that make you happy.” Union came to the conclusion that she couldn’t think of one.
AJ hit Union in the face with a harsh reality. “Of course your marriage failed, you don’t know what makes you happy, why would you think somebody else knows how to make you happy.” By taking ownership of her own life and happiness, Union has been able to rebuild and get to a healthy place, including being able to sit down and have a very candid and uncomfortable conversation with Pinkett Smith.
Catch the full recap and live conversation this Wednesday on Facebook’s Red Table Talk channel.
ABOUT FACEBOOK WATCH
Facebook Watch is a place to discover and enjoy shows on Facebook. Home to a wide range of shows—from scripted comedy and drama to competition and reality series, to individual creators and live sports—Facebook Watch is a video platform where episodic content, community, and conversation come together. This is a personalized viewing experience, where you can discover new series based on what your friends are watching, and catch up on the shows you follow.
]]>Just days ago, in announcing her and her husband’s deal with Netflix to produce content that promotes greater empathy and understanding between people, Mrs. Obama lauded the power of storytelling. Not yet available even for review, the book certainly commanded a powerful price. The Obamas’ joint 2017 deal with Penguin Random House was a record-breaker. Officially concealed, it was reported by the Financial Times to be in excess of $65 million.
While a POTUS memoir is expected to follow, it’s ladies-first time for M.O. According to its website (becomingmichelleobama.com), her book is “a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling.” While there is a vast archive of material written about her, this will be the first time she is telling her own story, her own way.
We think we already know it, having watched her move and grow during more than a dozen years under the constant glare of social and traditional media. But much of what was written about her in the early years just after her husband entered public life was speculative because as the mother of two young girls, with a corporate executive job in Chicago, and a spouse mostly living in Washington, D.C. as a senator, she wasn’t carving out time to give many interviews. Nor was she apologizing for it.
[Read Black Enterprise‘s exclusive interview with former President Barack Obama]
In declining an invitation to speak at the Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit in those days, the then Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center noted that, as a virtual single parent, her off-hours were fully committed to her daughters.
When their father ran for and then became President of the United States, while she was clearly his primary ally, confidante, and champion, there was something in her carriage that made me wonder how she really felt. There was no precedent for what they were about to do. This was his dream, not hers.
Except for her time away at Princeton as an undergrad and then Harvard Law School, she had only lived in Chicago, her hometown. There was no reason to believe she wanted to leave her friends, her job, and her dream house—a six-bedroom Georgian revival mansion with a wine cellar in Hyde Park (purchased thanks to his own status as a bestselling author). Not even for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.’s fully staffed 55,000 square feet.
Maybe I was just projecting. After all, our backgrounds were more alike than different. She was born 11 months before me, in the same year. We both grew up in black neighborhoods in major cities, married smart men who respected and believed in us, worked, had two children, were close to our families and committed to our communities.
We are both Capricorns—goats—said to be responsible, disciplined, natural leaders who will learn from their mistakes. Capricorns are also stubborn know-it-alls who like family, tradition, music, and understated status. What do we dislike? “Almost everything at some point,” according to astrology-zodiac-signs.com.
I loathe politics and distrust virtually all politicians. I have often wondered if, with a certain glaring exception, FLOTUS didn’t feel similarly. At the very least, she had to be more than a bit distrusting when first transitioning into her new life and role. She and I didn’t grow up watching Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X lead; we grew up watching their widows and fatherless children do their best to carry on. She must have feared for POTUS’s safety. Didn’t we all?
“Writing Becoming has been a deeply personal experience,” she Tweeted alongside her smiling image on the book’s cover. “I talk about my roots and how a girl from the South Side found her voice.”
That voice has become one of the most sought after and trusted of any race or gender in the world and it will be fascinating to hear it (she is recording the audiobook herself) as she finally has her own say.
There are at least as many questions about her life as she has admirers. All of them won’t be answered here, but it’s only her first memoir. There will no doubt be others. After all, she’s only 54, and the book is called Becoming, already hinting at more to come. Finally free to pursue her own dreams, with daughters Malia at Harvard and Sasha due to leave the nest next year, in a sense, she’s only just beginning.
]]>7 MONEY LESSONS FROM THE BIBLE
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?” —Luke 14:28
Lesson: Keep track of your money and think before you spend. Check out these money-saving apps that can make your financial goals a bit more doable.
(iStock/Liderina)
“A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children.” —Proverbs 13:22
Lesson: Leave wealth for the next generation. There are many resources for African Americans on building generational wealth. Rodney Sampson, founder of Opportunity Hub (OHUB), just announced at this year’s SXSW event, a number of programs he and others are launching to help the community build multigenerational wealth. Also, here is great information on how some are using life insurance to build generational wealth. Find other great wealth-building information here.
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“Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.” —Proverbs 13:11
Lesson: Be honest in your financial dealings and always watch out for ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes. Here’s how not to lose money and fall victim to network marketing and pyramid schemes; multilevel marketing pitches; and scams that target those with home-based businesses.
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“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers, they succeed.” —Proverbs 15:22
Lesson: Don’t be afraid or ashamed to seek financial advice. Seek out a money coach, read up on great money tips, and learn about good personal finance habits from a number of experts.
(iStock/Steve Debenport)
“A man lacking judgement strikes hands in pledge and puts up security for his neighbor.” —Proverbs 17:18
Lesson: Use caution when lending money, especially when official documentation is involved like co-signing a loan for someone. For example, here’s why you should never lend out your credit card. And these reasons will make you think twice before co-signing that loan.
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“Give everyone what you owe him. If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.” —Romans 13:7
Lesson: Stay on top of your debt, taxes, credit cards, loans (especially student loans)—fit payments into your monthly budget. Get some great tips from those who are ‘young, single, and free of debt’, and even greater advice on eliminating debt without going crazy.
(iStock/:Rawpixel)
“To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.” —Matthew 25:14-30
Lesson: It takes money to make money; invest, but invest wisely. Take advantage of that 401(k) at work, or, at minimum, make a commitment to put a specific amount of money away from every paycheck—even if it’s just $20.
(iStock/AndreyPopov)
—Lisa Fraser, Samara Lynn, and Sequoia Blodgett also contributed to this article.
]]>Amid the neighborhood transformation, there is a unique family business story that had a promising beginning, but their American dream temporarily fell victim to gentrification. However, the collective fortitude of the all-women entrepreneur group would not be denied, and it’s a great comeback story.
House of Seafood Express (HSE) was established by the McLoyd family in 1992. This black-owned business is an all women-operated restaurant located in the heart of Harlem, New York City. They opened the doors in August 1993. HSE is owned by three sisters that have six daughters between them who all manage the daily business operations.
The origins of their love for cooking seafood followed them from Mosquito Beach in James Island, South Carolina. The McLoyds would buy seafood from local distributors, but they often would cut out middlemen by catching and selling their own fish and crabs. The elders brought their southern style of cooking eventually up North—to Harlem.
UPROOTED BY RAPID NEIGHBORHOOD GENTRIFICATION
But after 15 years in business, HSE was forced out of its original location when developers bought the building and several other properties in September 2008. The steady and rapid Harlem development adversely affected black residents by forcing them to look for affordable housing, while also driving black-owned businesses to the point of extinction.
Although such an experience would have been a dream-ender for most, the McLoyds diligently searched for a storefront in Harlem, but none of the locations were within reason, price-wise. Even when some options were financially within reach, the locations required major renovations or simply had too many unreasonable clauses in the lease agreements.
After a five-year search, the McLoyds found the right place at an attractive price—a 350 square foot commercial space. At first, they offered takeout only. Yet, within a year, HSE expanded to 825 square feet to provide customers the option of dining-in.
Relocating wasn’t the only challenge the family faced. “It’s tough being a woman in business and even harder being a black woman in business. We tend to deal with a lot of men who often don’t take us seriously and question our knowledge of the business—the fish business can be extremely fishy,” says youngest daughter Laquan McLoyd.
She also noted that a steady rise in wages coupled with the challenge of finding people that want to work hard and who also understand the importance of being responsible, reliable, and professional are ongoing issues. All these issues, combined with fluctuating food costs, make running the restaurant very challenging.
Yet, cooking and food are what always brought the McLoyd family together. The McLoyds hope their business success and passion for great food will serve the community well for generations to come even as gentrification continues all around them.
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