Honestly, I never in a million years thought I
would even co-own a company let alone LIVE DOING WHAT I LOVE!!! My passion is
twofold, I love higher education & sports! First and foremost I have the
blessing of saying I am in my 10th year of my career in higher education as
administrator and would not change it for the world because this line of work
introduced me to the world of being a coach! Higher education and sports
has completely changed my life and these two ingredients combined have been responsible
for so many of the successes we live to see today.
During my time as a
Coach I utilized my time during the summer to create cheerleading camps for my
teams to fundraise, but most importantly to change lives! This idea then
filtered into a bigger thing of its own when I formed a very close relationship
with my teams captain Regan J. Hales, co-founder of UFIT. Regan was an
awesome athlete (and still is) she loved what we did when we would do cheer
camps for the youth! She had a knack for planning and being my assistant in the
summer :) Once Regan graduated we had this conversation about how great it
would be if we did camps all of the time! It was like an epiphany!!! We talked
about it and figured we can do it! We were so successful in what we did for every
young girl we trained. We also saw the need for these young athletes to be
exposed to TRUE CHEERLEADING & DANCE TRAINING because it rarely
exists!
Moving forward we were
on top of it and created UFIT!!!! It was just an amazing feeling when we began to
write the mission and vision for our business. To see that clients were quickly
booking our services was just awesome. As the business operation manager I saw
an increase in our clientele and events within the first year and a half. The
support we have gotten from our main sponsors has been tremendous. I will never
forget the first year we outsourced to Charlotte, N.C. It was our first time
doing a youth camp for kids. Two weeks before we had maybe ten people signed
up. Regan and I declared we will have this camp NO MATTER WHAT even if it’s
under a tree branch. That is how driven we were about our passion and what we
do! Luckily, we ended up with forty-five kids and it was absolutely
amazing.
Being an entrepreneur takes GUTS!!! You
have to JUST DO IT (Like Nike says) and take the RISK as long as you know you
are going to stick by what you do! I cannot ask for a better business partner
and support around me. UFIT has faced a lot of trials, but through it all REGAN
AND I have always found a solution to the problem. As business owners we survey
the issues and risks, but focus on how we can be successful. There is never a
dull moment in our office (lol our office's being talking to one another in our
cars as we commute to work every day!!!).
This is honestly a
dream come true and I get the chance to not only train future cheerleaders and
dancers, but encourage them to gain some type of exposure to post-secondary
education and I am even willing to be that person they can talk to if jumping
into a career is something they want to do! Cheer & Dance allows young
people to develop interpersonal skills, they learn to work with others, and
gain leadership skills all while cheering and dancing! Our UFIT athletes learn
discipline, self-respect, and how to take care of their mind, body, and spirit.
To know that I can assist in making a young person’s life better shows me that
my purpose in life is being fulfilled each and every day! Anyone who
works with UFIT will ALWAYS REMEMBER US!!!
Cheerfully
yours,
Joevanne Estrada
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