‘The Dolphins gave me a big boost.’ South Florida sports teams score big in helping others

Banana pudding, pineapple lemonade, seafood gumbo and the Miami Dolphins helped Chazemon “Chaz” Fenderson, a single mother from Opalocka, keep her fledgling catering business afloat when times got tough.

Fenderson, 43, was working at a medical supplies company in the insulin pump department. It was steady work, but she wanted to supplement her income to better provide for her two young daughters. So, she began waking up at 4 a.m. and cooking “Bizzy Breakfast Bowls” for her co-workers.

The bowls, which she sold for $10, included combinations of eggs, home fries, grits, sausage, bacon, and a biscuit. She made 20 a day and they sold like hotcakes.

Before long, she expanded her menu to include seafood gumbo ($15), banana pudding ($10) and pineapple lemonade ($5). On weekends, she would put her daughters in the back seat of her Kia Soul, pack the hatchback with coolers and sell her food at barber shops and hair salons from Opa-locka to

Miami Gardens.

“Most barbers are on their feet all day and they need things in a cup with a large spoon so they can eat and go,” she said. “I had no culinary background, no license. I made $200 the first weekend and felt like the bees’ knees. Then it went up to $500, and I was like `I’m doing this!’”

In 2018, on the suggestion of Miami Commissioner Keon Hardemon, Fenderson applied to the Martin Luther King Economic Development Corp. program, which awarded her free access to its commercial kitchen incubator for one year. She also became licensed to do cocktails and catering and to operate a food truck.

She made $8,000 in two days selling her signature cocktails in Orlando at the Florida Classic football game between BethuneCookman and Florida A&M.

Her company, DrinksOnMe305, grew to a full catering service and food truck, but it nearly shut down during the first few months of the pandemic. It survived in large part due to the Miami Dolphins Food Relief Program, a multimillion-dollar initiative which hired minority chefs and caterers hit hard during COVID to provide meals for those in need through area churches and community centers.

In March 2020 she was ready to sell food at Jazz in the Gardens at Hard Rock Stadium, and COVID hit.

She had already purchased thousands of dollars’ worth of food and had nowhere to sell it. Her entrepreneurial instincts took over. She set up a tent and grill on the corner of

Northwest 27th Avenue and 119th Street and sold her food from March through May.

She got a $10,000 grant from Fiserv, which was helping jump start minority-owned small businesses during the pandemic. It still wasn’t enough. That’s when the Dolphins stepped in.

The Dolphins’ program provided 1,000 meals on weekdays, continues to support the caterers/restaurants and has offered a few of them stadium kiosks to operate on game days.

Fenderson’s largest single-day job for the Dolphins was 1,500 dinner plates (jerk chicken, peas and rice, and black beans) distributed at Hard Rock Stadium for Miami Gardens residents and local church members. They also ordered hundreds of meals for Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Miami Gardens. She says her business would not have made it without the Dolphins’ generosity.

“The Dolphins gave me a huge boost during the darkest time,” she said. “Working with a national brand like that really helped me. I have gotten lots of new customers from it.”

Last November, with the help of a benefactor who doesn’t want to be named, Fenderson bought a food truck. She has a contract with King of Diamonds adult entertainment club seven nights a week, selling food from 9 p.m. to 3:45 a.m. Friends and relatives stay with her daughters while she works.