Detailing Florez

How does one itinerant farm worker climb from the constraints of migrant labor to the lofty rungs of successful entrepreneurship?  Hard work, determination, and a little help from his friends.
In little more than four years, Florez has succeeded in breaking free from financial dependency on seasonal crops by starting his own business - Florez Auto Detailing and Stereo Sounds in Dade City.  A native of Grandfield, Oklahoma, a small Texas border town, Florez and his 12-member family had been following fruit and vegetable harvests cross-country for several years when they first set foot in Pasco County in 1969.
"We harvested beets in Montana, went to Michigan and did some cherries, went to Ohio and did tomatoes, and then back to Michigan for apples," he says. "We were migrants. We came here to pick oranges." Returning to the Dade City area season after season, it was not until 1977 that Florez, his wife, Tammy, and daughter Anna finally decided to stay put and raise a family.
"We found that it was a nice place to live. There were people here from all over Texas, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and South America. The atmosphere was great."
Despite the area's well-founded reputation as a booming agricultural community, Florez was disheartened to find there was not always enough crop work to go around.
Unable to makes ends meet, Florez turned in desperation to the local Farmworker's Self-Help organization and its director, Margarita Romo, for assistance.
"Margarita helped me out to pay an electric bill," Florez recalls. "She doesn't even have a place of her own to live, yet she's helped people to buy their own homes. I never have forgotten that. I've been paying back to the community ever since."
Such efforts have included the donation of his carpet-cleaning skills for the beautification of St. Rita's Catholic Church, of which he is a member, assisting athletes and coaches of the local Police Athletic League's acclaimed boxing program, and providing financial assistance to Farmworker's Self-Help for the transport of relief supplies to the south Florida victims of Hurricane Andrew.
Having experienced firsthand the many obstacles his fellow laborers regularly face, Florez remains determined to help the area's poor, unskilled and disenfranchised in their fight for economic and social stability.