March 2022 – Chantel Aquart

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Come. Rest.

“I hope that Crave can be the place this year that says “Come” to all our leaders who are laboring and are heavy laden. “Come. Rest.”  ~ Spoken by Chantel Aquart, Chair-elect, at the Crave V Welcome Dinner in February, 2022

Chantel speaking at the 2022 Welcome Dinner.

The full verse of Matthew 11:28-30 reads like this:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,

and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

This is the reason I joined Crave. I was tired. I was worn-out and burned-out from trying to do life alone. I knew that God had given me great plans, but I didn’t know how to pursue them. I prayed long and hard; I went to small groups; I called help lines trying to unload and get help with my heavy burdens.

Racism. Poverty. Immigration. Domestic Violence. Incarceration. These are a few of my heavy burdens I deal with as a single parent of three. And I am not alone. Single motherhood has grown so common in America that today 80 percent of single-parent families are headed by single mothers; nearly one-third live in poverty. With God’s help and through programs like Crave, I work every day to overcome these statistics.

I enjoy being a public speaker. As a British-native and US citizen, I have moved around the world in my 40+ years. I ‘ve learned to manage change well. I’ve taught hundreds of people how to order life in order to find joy and fulfillment. This led me to open my own consulting firm Amazing Life Consulting Firm LLC, which offers life coaching in personal development for well-being so you can “Make Life Work.”

I also sit on the board of another community organization, Poverty Solutions Group, and have made over 50 Central Florida community connections (we call these Crave connections). It was through some of these connections that PSG was awarded close to $40,000 in grants last year.

I have learned environments can pivot you either to or away from your fullest potential. When I look back at the environments Crave placed me in as an aspiring entrepreneur, I see they were planting me in fertile soil. While I was a Class II Leader, I learned to develop, direct, accelerate, master, manage, create, fulfill, process, network, mobilize, fund, scale, and innovate my business. I continue to build on these skills an am now able to share what I learned new Crave V leaders, as I begin my term as Chair of the Board of Directors.

Crave’s Board of Directors, Program Council, Alumni, Coaches, and Community Partners are ready to join our new Crave V Leaders on their journey to stratospheric success. But we need you!

As our Crave Family continues to learn, to implement and to teach, we need you to help us make a larger impact. Do you have gifts, skills and talents you know could help our Crave V Leaders move forward? We would like to hear from you. Please let’s meet for coffee (or tea!) to discuss how we can make some Crave connections. Know someone we need to meet? Please share us with others! Let’s work together to help the new Crave Leaders do the great work they want to do in our community. Together we can make their burden light.

Chantel Aquart

Crave II Leader

Crave Board of Directors Chair, 2022

Crave Community Statement

We believe in the goodness of the human spirit 

and that together we are wiser, kinder, and capable of greater Love. 

We gather to discover, support, and challenge one another

as we commit our lives to the service of others. 

We honor each person’s journey 

because conversation is more valuable than conviction.

Today, we hope that the fire within us burns brighter for having been together.


Crave V Leaders (L-R)

Anthony Lewis, Joni Pugh, Antoniah Lewis-Reese, Edrewnae Lewis, 

Caleb Hylton, Shala Edwards, Cendie Stanford, Seven Charlestin, 

and Mark Bishop. (Not Pictured: Keisha Bishop, Lo-Ammi Richardson and Bryan Wilson.)

November 2020 – Adam Hartnett

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Turning “Something More” into Something Real

Two and a half years after graduating from the inaugural Crave class, I am living out the vision that Crave helped me set for myself.  At 27 years old, I joined Crave as a starry-eyed social worker with a dream of a world where everyone had what they needed: enough friends, meaning and money to live a truly happy life. Now, at 30 years old, I can say I’m making that dream into something real.

Along with some incredibly gifted people, we launched Poverty Solutions Group (PSG) this year, 2020. From the outside, it may seem like bad timing. We are facing some great losses and challenges this year: the coronavirus pandemic; the loss of some very great advocates for equality like Freedom Rider and Congressperson John Lewis, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Actor Chadwick Boseman; and the nation-wide grappling with the deep-seated racism that plagues our society. I’ve personally been grappling with some of my own losses, the greatest of these is the death of my sister, Adel, who died of an overdose a year ago at the young age of 31.

This year has been challenging, to say the least. But the way I see it, there has never been a better time to imbibe our community with a new hope. Our work at PSH is to bring people together from all backgrounds to build communities of support with folks in poverty, to learn from their lived experiences, and to work together toward systemic changes for those at the proverbial bottom of the economic ladder. In my small, sure, way I am staring the trauma of this year directly in the face, grieving and crying unashamedly for the losses we are experiencing, and turning our grief into something greater. My colleagues and I are transforming trauma into healing; grief into passion; poverty into wholeness.

Through PSG I now serve as the Regional Coach to Circles Central Florida. Circles is a proven, national model for reducing poverty by building community. I spend my days working with ordinary and dedicated people working together to help individuals and families with low-wealth build trust, set goals and overcome poverty for good. After spending 6 years perfecting the model in Winter Garden, FL, Circles is now working with Family Promise of Greater Orlando and a handful of other community partners to launch Circles Orlando! Our dream is to create Circles Communities across Seminole, Orange and Osceola Counties so everyone in Central Florida has easy access to the magic that is Circles.

If you share my passion to create a Central Florida community that works for everyone, please visit our new PSG website to learn more about how you can donate or get involved in other ways: www.povertysolutionsgroup.org . I’d love to partner with you to end poverty in our community and become an example for the rest of the country of what’s possible when we work together.

Adam Hartnett
Crave I Leader