Jose Fernandez

Jose Fernandez, a member of Miami Association of Realtors, earned the 2016 Humanitarian of the Year community service award from Florida Realtors. The prestigious award highlights the many causes, charities and organizations the 42,000 members of MIAMI support in South Florida and abroad.

Fernandez, 36, is a sales associate with Keller Williams Realty in Miami Beach. He recounts the moment saying, “I had tears of joy and gratitude upon winning because I do not help others to be recognized. I help others to make a difference and as a way to pay it forward for all the blessings I have been given.”

Fernandez received the award during the state association’s 100th annual Convention & Trade Expo in August. He said his family taught him the importance of helping others while he was a child living in Puerto Rico. In 2001, he began sponsoring children through Chicago International, while attending Florida International University of Miami. Since then his lifelong devotion to community service has taken him on missionary trips to Uganda, Mexico, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. He’s worked with several organizations over that time, including the Honduran orphanage Fundacion Amor y Vida and the Salvation Army. And spent the last five years organizing Red Day, an initiative to give back to the community, at the real estate firm where he works.

“This is one of my greatest accomplishments and I am humbled to receive it,” he says. “I am blessed for having the opportunity to represent a community of MIAMI Realtors who give their time, effort and money to help make this world a better place. To all those Realtors, I dedicate this award.”

Fernandez’s leadership and service has helped more than 350 children from low-income backgrounds and communities in Miami-Dade County and His House Children Home in Miami Gardens.