Who am I it’s the year of 1998 and I’m a
13 year old half-black half-puerto Rican
boy living in the projects and the Bronx
of New York City and I got my first job
packing bags at a supermarket you see
some way somehow the charisma and
tenacity of my mother and I’m convincing
the supervisor at this supermarket to
give an underage boy a job and that
happened to be one of the most
specialist experiences of my life
I’ll never forget that one Saturday
morning that I left with 30 dollars in
my pocket of quarters nickels and dimes
and I know most of you saying thirty
dollars as much but for me it wasn’t the
money it was a sense of accomplishment
it was me seeing myself exercise my will
and apply my effort to gain a result and
I became empowered with that process of
creating I fell in love with it the
hustle I enjoyed it and that led me to
continue to work in different areas
I’d enjoy greet ale customer service
telemarketing and I landed my first real
job right around the age of 21 working
on a special education high school in
the South Bronx as a paraprofessional
for those of you that don’t know what
that means it’s a fancy term for
assistant teacher and I’ll never forget
my first day the assistant principal
walked me upstairs and I’m getting ready
going to this classroom and I got on
Sundays best you know your first real
job shirt-and-tie kind of thing I walk
into the classroom and I walk over to
the student and I say good morning my
name is mr. a and he slowly stands up
looks me dead in my eye he says
a few brushes by me runs out the
classroom down the hall and down the
stairs I look over to my assistant
principal and she says go ahead and
chase him now I don’t need to go into
great detail of how my year-and-a-half
was at that job but through that little
narrative you can get idea what it was
like but you see something special
happened to me while working at that
school for the first time I got the
opportunity to be outside of myself
witnessing myself now what do I mean by
that these kids were just like me born
and raised in the projects cut from the
same cloth dealing with the same
obstacles trying to overcome their
circumstances wanting more out of life
and what happened to me in that
situation was I started to feel the
responsibility that I had to be a role
model for them and for the first time in
my life I felt like this could possibly
be like my purpose or something maybe to
be an example give them a point of
reference of something that they can
model look after to change their
behavior but you see for those of you
that have been to New York maybe even
lived in New York you guys know New York
will chew you up and spit you out and at
that time in my life I wasn’t grounded I
wasn’t centered life got the best of me
I mean at times I was even homeless
sleeping in my car and I needed a change
and I reached out to my best friend who
had just moved to Delaware and I said
listen I need to get out of New York I
don’t really have too many options could
this be a possibility and he said yeah I
think Delaware could be a great look for
you
and I said della what he said Delaware
that’s in my mind I’m like is this in
like New Hampshire or Colorado or he’s
like no no no no it’s like two hours
down the turnpike that’s okay I
anything to lose let me go to Delaware I
get the Delaware and I continue my world
of Education working with youth ranging
from special education advise and
behavioral counseling IP development you
name it I even left Delaware and worked
in a maximum-security youth prison
upstate New York when I was working with
kids that were 14 years old during 25
years to life something that didn’t even
know existed and after working there for
ten months of being stressed out I need
to change my environment once again I
moved back to Delaware and I found
myself in an elementary school and I
experienced something that would change
my life forever you see up to this point
a hat five six years of professional
experience and this time I was in
in-school suspension room and a kid was
sent to me for bad behavior typical
protocol I engage a conversation what
happened what could have you done better
nurse calls upstairs and says hey I need
you to bring him downstairs to take his
meds again nothing out of the ordinary I
take him downstairs he gets his meds we
come back upstairs in about ten minutes
I hear noise coming from his desk I look
up and this kid is knocked out sleep
snoring I mean to the point to where
he’s literally drooling on his arm and I
walk over slowly now I’m scared because
I’m the only one in the room with him I
try to wake him up he doesn’t wake up
now I’m even more scared so I apply a
little pressure he finally wakes up he
looks up at me semi-conscious and goes
right back to sleep and in that moment
something happened to me I realized that
could I possibly be the problem because
I obviously wasn’t the solution after
seven years of working professionally
with kids when were we ever going to get
to the root cause the problem man whoa
understand the root cause the problem
and if I’m gonna be sitting here taking
a paycheck to be doing something it got
to be more than just ban dating and
treating the surface level reactive of
what is happening and I no longer
cassette over just doing that so I quit
my job and I went looking for an
alternative method to education a
different way to help these kids I one
doubt one day while being on Facebook I
saw this ad and said consciousness based
education and only reason why I clicked
on it was because I couldn’t pronounce
nor spell the word and I figured if they
gotta be that difficult to spell or
understand maybe I need to check it out
and I went to their website and the
school was named Maharishi University of
Management they specialize in
Transcendental Meditation vegetarian
organic food Ayurvedic Yerger words that
I had no idea even existed but again
because it was so different it was
appealing a trade me and I said you know
what this is the school I’m gonna go to
and people thought I was crazy and I’ll
never I’ll never forget the experience
of me telling people that I was leaving
the comfort of my job in my lifestyle
right here in Delaware to literally move
to the middle of nowhere surrounding
corn fields in Iowa now at the time the
only thing I knew that came to mind when
I heard the word Iowa was children of
the corn
and by far there has to be probably one
of the top 5 scariest movies of my
childhood something about Malachi just
doesn’t settle well with me 3 9 Pet
Sematary so I leave the comfort of my
world and I moved to Iowa Here I am at
this consciousness based education
University and I’m practicing meditation
yes black people meditate and I’m
practicing yoga yes black people do yoga
and I adopt this vegan lifestyle my life
begins to change and after three months
of practicing yoga I lost my first
the five pounds to put things into
perspective
I am currently down a hundred and ten
pounds and no that is not Suge Knight on
the left that isn’t me
Jason Aviles and something amazing
happened to me in that space during that
three years I found a solution I found
something that could package into a
service that would help kids develop a
greater understanding of who they are so
they could live a greater quality of
life and the great thing was it happened
so organically it happened through me
first so after spending three years
there I developed my own interdiscipline
degree in youth development in social
change and I moved right back to
Delaware and I launched my first company
called fly yogi which is a hundred
percent mobile yoga company that
provides yoga instruction for youth in
schools corporate environments and
communities at large and as most of you
know because some of you I’m sure are
entrepreneurs and small business owners
one the first thing they tell you to do
is to network network and network so one
time I find myself attending this
network event and I get the infamous
question all the time what do you do my
answer about a hundred percent of the
time is I don’t know a lot that’s what I
do I do a lot but this one particular
conversation sparked something different
he wanted to really know about what I’m
doing and who I am he said well you know
I’ve heard you say that you teach yoga
you have this yoga company is there
anything else you’re working on and I
say yes you know I’m working on this
project called Wilmington green box he
says tell me a little bit about it and I
said well do you know that 20 3.5
million Americans in the United States
live in what we call the food desert in
fact over 70
of residents here in Wilmington live in
a food desert meaning that you live more
than a half a mile away from a grocery
store crime has been on the increase by
over 27% here in Wilmington over the
last year our youth are struggling to
find employment opportunities that teach
them entrepreneurship skills and mentor
them through the process at the same
time and I said listen I have this
project it’s going to take these at-risk
teens and it’s going to train them
educate them hire them and in turn
they’re gonna be responsible for
handling the daily operation of this
project that’s going to provide direct
access to healthy Goods and fresh
produce to areas that are classified as
food deserts and on top of that these
products that we’re gonna purchase the
SEL they’re all going to be purchased
locally from local food companies
because we need to support our local
economy and his response to all that was
this you sound like a social
entrepreneur and ask myself am i a
social entrepreneur you see I’ve heard
these words before but at that moment it
resonated with me could this possibly be
it we normally don’t see the words
social next to entrepreneur because
entrepreneur for the most part people
understand that it’s about making money
developing systems business models
revenue products services and then the
social part we mainly connect with the
nonprofit sector it’s about caring about
people making an impact but for me I
never saw the two as being separate and
really where that comes from is my
understanding through practicing yoga in
fact the word yoga itself means Union
and in the essence of understanding that
Union there’s this very simple but
profound truth and that is this that we
are all connected it’s almost as if were
different branches
of the same tree and even though we
perceive each other to be different
through our senses whether that be
through race or labor or title in our
essence in our being we’re not only
created from but were connected to the
same source so what I understand myself
to be different or not essentially when
I serve when I give I’m serving and
giving to myself and when I serve and
give to myself I’m serving and giving to
others and social entrepreneurship is
exactly about that it’s about
transforming the way that we think in
the way that we do business that keeps
the people that we most dearly care
about in mind while still being okay
with making money because we get it it’s
needed it’s important and when we
develop Wilmington greenboxe we came up
with a model that we call a win-win-win
we said we’re gonna train to educate the
kids to work and at the same time we’re
going to develop this product and
service to the community and at the same
time we’re going to purchase these
products to support the local community
and you see something special in that
happen just under two seasons of being
an operation we have trained educated
and employed six at-risk teens from the
local community with little to no funds
we have purchased over 2,100 local goods
from local food companies and we’ve
served over a thousand people and really
all this comes from a more even
important question that we should all
ask ourselves who are mine and no matter
how we define that no matter how we
labor ourselves I want you all to keep
in mind that let that spark of curiosity
leads you to this fact now we are all
connected and caring for each other
shouldn’t be a luxury it should be a
responsibility
namaste
[Applause]
you
13 year old half-black half-puerto Rican
boy living in the projects and the Bronx
of New York City and I got my first job
packing bags at a supermarket you see
some way somehow the charisma and
tenacity of my mother and I’m convincing
the supervisor at this supermarket to
give an underage boy a job and that
happened to be one of the most
specialist experiences of my life
I’ll never forget that one Saturday
morning that I left with 30 dollars in
my pocket of quarters nickels and dimes
and I know most of you saying thirty
dollars as much but for me it wasn’t the
money it was a sense of accomplishment
it was me seeing myself exercise my will
and apply my effort to gain a result and
I became empowered with that process of
creating I fell in love with it the
hustle I enjoyed it and that led me to
continue to work in different areas
I’d enjoy greet ale customer service
telemarketing and I landed my first real
job right around the age of 21 working
on a special education high school in
the South Bronx as a paraprofessional
for those of you that don’t know what
that means it’s a fancy term for
assistant teacher and I’ll never forget
my first day the assistant principal
walked me upstairs and I’m getting ready
going to this classroom and I got on
Sundays best you know your first real
job shirt-and-tie kind of thing I walk
into the classroom and I walk over to
the student and I say good morning my
name is mr. a and he slowly stands up
looks me dead in my eye he says
a few brushes by me runs out the
classroom down the hall and down the
stairs I look over to my assistant
principal and she says go ahead and
chase him now I don’t need to go into
great detail of how my year-and-a-half
was at that job but through that little
narrative you can get idea what it was
like but you see something special
happened to me while working at that
school for the first time I got the
opportunity to be outside of myself
witnessing myself now what do I mean by
that these kids were just like me born
and raised in the projects cut from the
same cloth dealing with the same
obstacles trying to overcome their
circumstances wanting more out of life
and what happened to me in that
situation was I started to feel the
responsibility that I had to be a role
model for them and for the first time in
my life I felt like this could possibly
be like my purpose or something maybe to
be an example give them a point of
reference of something that they can
model look after to change their
behavior but you see for those of you
that have been to New York maybe even
lived in New York you guys know New York
will chew you up and spit you out and at
that time in my life I wasn’t grounded I
wasn’t centered life got the best of me
I mean at times I was even homeless
sleeping in my car and I needed a change
and I reached out to my best friend who
had just moved to Delaware and I said
listen I need to get out of New York I
don’t really have too many options could
this be a possibility and he said yeah I
think Delaware could be a great look for
you
and I said della what he said Delaware
that’s in my mind I’m like is this in
like New Hampshire or Colorado or he’s
like no no no no it’s like two hours
down the turnpike that’s okay I
anything to lose let me go to Delaware I
get the Delaware and I continue my world
of Education working with youth ranging
from special education advise and
behavioral counseling IP development you
name it I even left Delaware and worked
in a maximum-security youth prison
upstate New York when I was working with
kids that were 14 years old during 25
years to life something that didn’t even
know existed and after working there for
ten months of being stressed out I need
to change my environment once again I
moved back to Delaware and I found
myself in an elementary school and I
experienced something that would change
my life forever you see up to this point
a hat five six years of professional
experience and this time I was in
in-school suspension room and a kid was
sent to me for bad behavior typical
protocol I engage a conversation what
happened what could have you done better
nurse calls upstairs and says hey I need
you to bring him downstairs to take his
meds again nothing out of the ordinary I
take him downstairs he gets his meds we
come back upstairs in about ten minutes
I hear noise coming from his desk I look
up and this kid is knocked out sleep
snoring I mean to the point to where
he’s literally drooling on his arm and I
walk over slowly now I’m scared because
I’m the only one in the room with him I
try to wake him up he doesn’t wake up
now I’m even more scared so I apply a
little pressure he finally wakes up he
looks up at me semi-conscious and goes
right back to sleep and in that moment
something happened to me I realized that
could I possibly be the problem because
I obviously wasn’t the solution after
seven years of working professionally
with kids when were we ever going to get
to the root cause the problem man whoa
understand the root cause the problem
and if I’m gonna be sitting here taking
a paycheck to be doing something it got
to be more than just ban dating and
treating the surface level reactive of
what is happening and I no longer
cassette over just doing that so I quit
my job and I went looking for an
alternative method to education a
different way to help these kids I one
doubt one day while being on Facebook I
saw this ad and said consciousness based
education and only reason why I clicked
on it was because I couldn’t pronounce
nor spell the word and I figured if they
gotta be that difficult to spell or
understand maybe I need to check it out
and I went to their website and the
school was named Maharishi University of
Management they specialize in
Transcendental Meditation vegetarian
organic food Ayurvedic Yerger words that
I had no idea even existed but again
because it was so different it was
appealing a trade me and I said you know
what this is the school I’m gonna go to
and people thought I was crazy and I’ll
never I’ll never forget the experience
of me telling people that I was leaving
the comfort of my job in my lifestyle
right here in Delaware to literally move
to the middle of nowhere surrounding
corn fields in Iowa now at the time the
only thing I knew that came to mind when
I heard the word Iowa was children of
the corn
and by far there has to be probably one
of the top 5 scariest movies of my
childhood something about Malachi just
doesn’t settle well with me 3 9 Pet
Sematary so I leave the comfort of my
world and I moved to Iowa Here I am at
this consciousness based education
University and I’m practicing meditation
yes black people meditate and I’m
practicing yoga yes black people do yoga
and I adopt this vegan lifestyle my life
begins to change and after three months
of practicing yoga I lost my first
the five pounds to put things into
perspective
I am currently down a hundred and ten
pounds and no that is not Suge Knight on
the left that isn’t me
Jason Aviles and something amazing
happened to me in that space during that
three years I found a solution I found
something that could package into a
service that would help kids develop a
greater understanding of who they are so
they could live a greater quality of
life and the great thing was it happened
so organically it happened through me
first so after spending three years
there I developed my own interdiscipline
degree in youth development in social
change and I moved right back to
Delaware and I launched my first company
called fly yogi which is a hundred
percent mobile yoga company that
provides yoga instruction for youth in
schools corporate environments and
communities at large and as most of you
know because some of you I’m sure are
entrepreneurs and small business owners
one the first thing they tell you to do
is to network network and network so one
time I find myself attending this
network event and I get the infamous
question all the time what do you do my
answer about a hundred percent of the
time is I don’t know a lot that’s what I
do I do a lot but this one particular
conversation sparked something different
he wanted to really know about what I’m
doing and who I am he said well you know
I’ve heard you say that you teach yoga
you have this yoga company is there
anything else you’re working on and I
say yes you know I’m working on this
project called Wilmington green box he
says tell me a little bit about it and I
said well do you know that 20 3.5
million Americans in the United States
live in what we call the food desert in
fact over 70
of residents here in Wilmington live in
a food desert meaning that you live more
than a half a mile away from a grocery
store crime has been on the increase by
over 27% here in Wilmington over the
last year our youth are struggling to
find employment opportunities that teach
them entrepreneurship skills and mentor
them through the process at the same
time and I said listen I have this
project it’s going to take these at-risk
teens and it’s going to train them
educate them hire them and in turn
they’re gonna be responsible for
handling the daily operation of this
project that’s going to provide direct
access to healthy Goods and fresh
produce to areas that are classified as
food deserts and on top of that these
products that we’re gonna purchase the
SEL they’re all going to be purchased
locally from local food companies
because we need to support our local
economy and his response to all that was
this you sound like a social
entrepreneur and ask myself am i a
social entrepreneur you see I’ve heard
these words before but at that moment it
resonated with me could this possibly be
it we normally don’t see the words
social next to entrepreneur because
entrepreneur for the most part people
understand that it’s about making money
developing systems business models
revenue products services and then the
social part we mainly connect with the
nonprofit sector it’s about caring about
people making an impact but for me I
never saw the two as being separate and
really where that comes from is my
understanding through practicing yoga in
fact the word yoga itself means Union
and in the essence of understanding that
Union there’s this very simple but
profound truth and that is this that we
are all connected it’s almost as if were
different branches
of the same tree and even though we
perceive each other to be different
through our senses whether that be
through race or labor or title in our
essence in our being we’re not only
created from but were connected to the
same source so what I understand myself
to be different or not essentially when
I serve when I give I’m serving and
giving to myself and when I serve and
give to myself I’m serving and giving to
others and social entrepreneurship is
exactly about that it’s about
transforming the way that we think in
the way that we do business that keeps
the people that we most dearly care
about in mind while still being okay
with making money because we get it it’s
needed it’s important and when we
develop Wilmington greenboxe we came up
with a model that we call a win-win-win
we said we’re gonna train to educate the
kids to work and at the same time we’re
going to develop this product and
service to the community and at the same
time we’re going to purchase these
products to support the local community
and you see something special in that
happen just under two seasons of being
an operation we have trained educated
and employed six at-risk teens from the
local community with little to no funds
we have purchased over 2,100 local goods
from local food companies and we’ve
served over a thousand people and really
all this comes from a more even
important question that we should all
ask ourselves who are mine and no matter
how we define that no matter how we
labor ourselves I want you all to keep
in mind that let that spark of curiosity
leads you to this fact now we are all
connected and caring for each other
shouldn’t be a luxury it should be a
responsibility
namaste
[Applause]
you
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