How Joseph Hobbs Overcame Abject Povery And Beat The Odds

Los Angeles, California Jan 3, 2022 (Issuewire.com) - Joseph Hobbs, Jr. was born on November 5, 1964, to a mother who only had an 8th-grade education and a father, who in the 5th grade dropped out of school at 10 years of age. His father can be described as an abused man who was illiterate, an alcoholic, and a chain-smoker. Hobbs with his brother grew up in abject poverty in a small rural area of Goldsboro, North Carolina. Abject poverty is the lowest extreme imaginable and is associated with misery and humiliation. Therefore, abject poverty is the lowest, most hopeless form of poverty. During the mid-1960s and early 1970s, the two-room shack where he lived with his parents, should have been considered uninhabitable by modern standards at that time. The living conditions were extremely poor inside the two-room shack that did not have any electricity or indoor plumbing. As a sanitation worker, the father was barely making any income. He struggled to provide the necessities of life for the family. He did not have any career advancements opportunities given his lack of education.

Hobbs father often brought home food thrown away or taken from trash cans through his sanitation job with the City of Goldsboro, North Carolina. His stay-at-home mother (Annie Mae Power) who battled depression and had been admitted several times to mental institutions, sought to get her children out of poverty and realize the path forward would be to ensure they attended school every day. In fact, the school provided a haven for a few hours away from an abusive father and poor living conditions. Hobbs and his brother would frequently risk their lives crawling under train cars parked on the railroad tracks which would block their path to school. To bring attention to the dire situation his mother set the shack on fire so that the local authorities would come and take the children away. Despite her efforts, the children remained with the parents as the abuse and neglect of the children continued.

After years of observing the abuse and living conditions, a neighbor (guardian angel) contacted the Wayne County Department of Social Services, and finally, he along with his brother were removed from the home and placed in foster care. Between 1971 and 1989, he and his brother lived with five (5) different foster care families and in 1980 were sent to a group home (Kennedy Homes, a ministry of Baptist Children's Homes of North Carolina) located in Kinston, North Carolina. Despite so much trauma in their lives, Hobbs and his brother managed to overcome adversity and flourished there at Kennedy Homes, and started participating in sports and extracurricular activities. It was also in high school where Hobbs gained an interest in fashion and often collected Vogue and GQ magazines and found himself marveling at the lifestyle the famous and influential lived. In high school, Hobbs had an aspiration of becoming a fashion designer however a career in that industry seemed so unrealistic. In June 1983 he

graduated from North Lenoir High School in La Grange, North Carolina. Upon leaving Kennedy Homes he was forced to live on his own and find his way through life. So, in the fall of that year, Hobbs enrolled at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.

During his enrollment in college, Hobbs worked part-time jobs to support himself that included being a busboy and dishwasher at restaurants, a bagger and cashier at grocery stores, and janitorial jobs. In 1987 and within four (4) years of enrolling in college, he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science. He decided to continue his education and applied and was accepted to attend graduate school at North Carolina Central University. Hobbs began his career employed at local and state government agencies. Also, in 1989 Hobbs got married during his first year in graduate school. In 1990, Hobbs received his Master's in Public Administration. In 1992, he accepted a position in the education department at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. It was at UNC where he discovered a gift for technical writing and was given grant writing and fundraising assignments. In 1993 Hobbs and his wife had their only child (Jeremy Tyler Hobbs).

In 1995, he and his family relocated from Durham, North Carolina to Charlotte, North Carolina and he attempted to start a men's retail clothing business, but it did not materialize. During his time in Charlotte, North Carolina, he was employed at three agencies (Central Piedmont Community College, Charlotte Housing Authority, and Charlotte Mecklenburg Arts & Science Council). In 1999, he started his own fundraising company for nonprofit organizations. Divorced by the year 2000, Hobbs sought a new beginning and in the year 2002, he relocated from Charlotte, North Carolina to Los Angeles, California. Between 2003 and 2004, he pursued an acting career but later shifted his full-time focus back to fundraising for nonprofit organizations. In 2005, Hobbs assisted in obtaining a $1 million grant through The Kresge Foundation to support an effort to build the William H. Hannon Library on the campus of Loyola Mount University in Pacific Palisades, California which opened on August 20, 2009. Over the course of three (3) years between 2005 and 2008, he raised approximately $4.3 million for nonprofit organizations.

Also in 2009, Hobbs was hired as a fundraising consultant for a nonprofit in Los Angeles, California, who hosted an annual Oscar viewing party. His involvement with the nonprofit put him a new career path. He coordinated a fundraising committee that focused on obtaining financial support for low-income communities. It was through that committee that he began meeting celebrities. A few months later, he attended the CNN Hero Awards and American Music Awards where he met Paris Hilton. It was through those experiences and meeting Paris Hilton that Hobbs began pursuing a career in celebrity fashion styling and event concierge services. In 2010, Hobbs created a partnership with an event concierge service based in New York in which he focused on scheduling and assisting clients to attend fashion shows and other events. He began attending events with clients in which he would style them and coordinate their overall appearance and public image. Also, Hobbs continued to meet celebrities and make connections within the entertainment industry.

In 2015, Hobbs realized that social and digital media marketing was rapidly growing, and brands were inquiring how they could get their products in the hands of the famous and influential through him to promote on social media. In that same year, he attended the Academy Awards. That was a remarkable experience given he had never been to a movie theater until he was 17 years old. In 2016, he started taking those products to gift suites during awards season while providing celebrity fashion styling for events. In 2016, he later expanded to other events in sports, gaming, social media, and more. By 2020, he had taken over 100 products to gift suites at events in Hollywood. He later determined that in addition to gifting suites that brands could be marketed with the right content creation and promotional strategies. He expanded beyond image consulting and fashion styling with a focus on content creation and brand promotion for businesses that have very little or limited access to Hollywood to promote their products. Through his extensive Hollywood connections, he started a business focused on brand promotion featuring celebrities and events for digital and social media marketing.

The poor African American child who grew up in abject poverty in a rural area of Goldsboro, North Carolina had an amazing journey from an adolescent to adulthood. He found a way to far exceed anyone's expectations. In fact, Hobbs raised over $100 million for charities and nonprofits during his career. Maybe it was his indirect way of giving back through his fundraising skills to help others who were just as less fortunate as he was growing up. In fact, according to Bloomberg CityLab, just 16 percent of children who grow up in poverty manage to become economically successful adults. The odds of Hobbs succeeding at anything in life was clearly less than 10 percent given so many obstacles he had to overcome. He serves as an inspiration that anyone can do it with grit and determination with the help of a 'guardian angel'. It can be concluded that by Hobbs hanging out with fashion icon Anna Wintour of Vogue and attending GQ Magazine events, his life has come full circle.

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