UNIVERSITY OF LIFE ITSELF
University of Life Itself fosters the development of true Social Entrepreneurship by training and supporting community leaders and activists with the key tools to position them to elevate their communities in Affordable Housing, Housing Counseling, Real Estate Investing, Credit Enhancement, Conscious Leadership, Consumer Law, Accelerated Learning, Natural Health Modalities, Metaphysics and High Frequency Music.
U of LI led the foreclosure prevention charge as early as 2001 and its founder Larry Cherry predicted the 2008 foreclosure crisis seven years before it happened. U of LI created seminars nationwide that directly and directly assisted hundreds of homeowners to save their homes and properties from foreclosure. (See Bio-attached)
ABOUT FOUNDER – LARRY CHERRY
Larry Cherry is a native of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. His career includes 48 years of dedication as a community based entrepreneur and small business advocate. While attending the University of Illinois, Larry developedawomen’s apparel business at 18 years of age and for 18 additional years attracted thousands of customers throughout the United States. During that period, he operated a fashion concern on Chicago’s upscale North Michigan Avenue intheHyatt Regency Hotel. Concurrently, and simultaneously developed a course- Entrepreneurship/Home Based Business Start Up for the City Colleges of Chicago.
He pioneered the idea of large wholesale fashion enterprises launching retail front ends for I.B. Diffusion, a fifty million dollar a year importer in 1988that led to the opening of 50 stores for the firm. His company was chosen as Small Business of the Year by Chicago United, an organization of over 50 of Chicago’s leading corporations in 1986. The fashion enterprising phase of his life servedasa training ground in which Larry began to master some unique skills such as personalized marketing, motivation coaching, teaching, business planning, and community economic development.
Early on, Larry realized and internalized the importance of entrepreneurship as a road to self-determination and community growth. Hewasmentored in his twenties by S.B. Fuller (known as the father of Afrikan-American
business) Dan Goodwin (Chairman of Inland Real Estate, Dick Gregory (Human Rights Activist) and Ed Gardner (founder of Soft Sheen Products) . These types of influences as well as Larry’s insatiable thirst for knowledge and avid reading skills formed the basis for his foray into using real estate development as a means to promote economic development. He worked briefly for the People’s Reinvestment and Development Effort overseeing the management of 500 plus affordable housing units in 1989. He also developed a home ownership program for families currently used by the Federal Housing subsidy program.
Larry was the youngest volunteer Small Business Administration counselor in the agency’s SCORE program at 30 years of age. He worked as an instructor and advisor in the Women’s Self Development Effort which is known for their micro-enterprise lending program for women in India. Larry shares his business acumen both globally and locally. He developed and taught an entrepreneurship program for ShoreBanc’s Neighborhood Enterprise program in Chicago’s SouthShore community.
In 1996, Larry Cherry became a licensed State of Illinois Real Estate broker as well as a mortgage broker. He invested in over 100 properties and mastered the art of purchasing real estate with no down payment. His two companies were instrumental in assisting many low income families become home owners using budgeting, credit restoration, creative financing combined with various housing programs. Cherry’s proposal to the Illinois Housing Development Authority led to the development of a 63 unit apartment complexin
1989 with 2 million dollars in financing which still operates providing affordable housing in Chicago’s historic Hyde Park Neighborhood.
Larry is a 23 year board member of New Directions Housing which has developed over 1000 units of affordable housing. Cherry’s combination of experience in real estate, marketing, teaching, entrepreneurship and his genuine commitment to community lead to empowering residents of many impoverished communities. As an active student and teacher of business workshops, Larry has developed a mastery of monetary science to help communities compensate for the lack of access to capital.
Starting with the simple question, “What is Money”, Cherry investigates the history of money creation in the U.S., the power of the Federal ReserveBank, the intent of the framers of the Constitution regarding “legal tender”, banking laws, consumer advocacy laws, asset protection, contract law, commercial law, mortgage banking, affordable housing, and other subjects relating to the empowerment of the average American citizen.
Larry accurately predicted the current foreclosure pandemic in 2001andheld classes at a local high school every Sunday for months to educate community members on how to prepare for the coming crash. The workshops led to the development of a non-for-profit 501(c)3 organization – The University of Life Itself founded and directed by Cherry that specialized in providing cutting edge solutions to financial, educational and health issues. Cherry developed the curriculum for 12 courses to support elementary and high school teachers in reaching students with practical information on finance, health, accelerated
learning and economic development. He conducted workshops for over 4000teachers in 70 plus schools.
As the foreclosure problem grew, University of Life Itself’s resources became focused on educating homeowners, clergymen, politicians, legislators, attorneys and local cable television audiences on how foreclosures were beginning to devastate entire neighborhoods. After realizing that the legal community and judiciary were poorly informed on these issues and even less prepared to protect homeowners from predatory lenders, Larry used his accelerated learning skills such as mind mapping, photo reading, intuition, Socratic learning method, and visualization to begin mastering civil procedure, legal research, legal writing, litigation, credit money issues, debt collection practices, fair credit reporting violations, Truth in Lending violations, housing discrimination, and much more to provide homeowners and the legal community with ways to protect homeowners. Larry led an effective charge that pre-dated the current laws being enacted to prevent predatory lending.
He was chosen as an affiliate fellow by the Ashoka Foundation, a global social entrepreneurship organization. The Ashoka Foundation provided resources fostered research that led to the development of comprehensive courses in community real estate investment with intensive modules on accelerated learning, credit restoration, property acquisition, contract negotiation, loan origination, land trusts, real estate accounting and taxation, property management, civil procedure, legal research, foreclosure prevention techniques, predatory lending prosecution, marketing, construction management, financing,
and affordable housing. Realizing that the job was far from done and also that a massive effort was needed to truly empower property owners, Larry created a business to partner with property investors in foreclosure. Using varying combinations of legal, entrepreneurship, real estate, finance, and community development, he created ways to counter the uneven distribution of wealth caused by foreclosures. University of Life Itself provided in-depth counseling for attorneys and paralegals in foreclosure prevention.
Throughout his career, Larry Cherry has remained primarily focused on both human and economic development through education and entrepreneurship. Cherry is a past mentor with the Blackstar Program, 100BlackMen and the Principal for a Day with Chicago Public Schools. His hobbies are electrical engineering, hydrogen production, metallurgy, martial arts, chess, piano, bass guitar, songwriting, public speaking, and many alternative health-and-healing solutions for medical problems.