Born on 12 January 1969, Dr. Adrian Fox is a native son of the Bahamas would understand acutely exactly what a philanthropic establishment would need to provide in his homeland in order to make life better for everyone.
Young Adrian attended St. Bedes Primary School, before attending grades five – eight at Donald W. Davis Middle School. He would earn a high school diploma at R.M. Baily High School.
Adrian gained invaluable experience in the service industry during his youth, working at Captain Nemo’s, then the Café Martinique and also the 5 Twins at the Atlantis Resort. During this era of his youth, Fox also launched and ran a number of small businesses, including a hair salon, a telephone card business and newspaper stand, before developing Foxies Liquor, Foxies Restaurant, and Bar and the Obsession Designs clothing store.
In 2009, Fox opened the Island Luck, which soon became the leading gaming and lottery service in the Bahamas. Soon, after he developed Brickell Real Estate, ILTV and the Trésor Rare Parfumerie.Following the establishment of these successful enterprises, Adrian launched the Fox Foundation in order to give back to his community and the world.
The Fox Foundation is dedicated to supporting and enriching the lives of Bahamians in the spheres of Education, Youth Development, Community Building and Disaster Relief.
Fewer places on earth experience more of an economic divide than the Caribbean Islands. The Caribbean is a breathtaking place, and it has been a chief vacation destination for individuals from various locations across the world. However, the Caribbean is also home to some of the most disenfranchised, poverty-stricken individuals in the world.
Unfortunately, this is factual across the islands, and additionally, is the fact that the Caribbean Islands are regularly affected by numerous natural disasters.
In December 2020, a volcanic eruption took place on St. Vincent Island. Just one year prior, the Caribbean region and specifically his native Bahamas had been wrecked by a devastating hurricane and subsequent flooding. The Grenadines had also seen adverse effects from the 2020 volcano. Some years, hurricane season means multiple tropical storms that at the very least dump a great deal of rain on the islands; some storms are so catastrophic that entire communities are wiped out. Of course, this is in addition to two years of COVID-19 pandemic influence on the rate of tourism to the area. With tourism as the primary form of economic activity in the Caribbean, this has left people already struggling financially in near ruin.
As a result, native people are leaving the Caribbean in droves. Even before the 2019 hurricane and the volcanic eruption in 2020, people were having a difficult time making ends meet. Many were already displaced, and the pandemic plus relentless natural disasters only served to worsen an already bleak economic time for many in the area.
The natural disasters that have been hitting the Islands have driven many native to the area to leave, and the pandemic only exacerbated the problem. However, one native son of the Caribbean Islands is determined to do whatever he can to not only help the people who see no other alternative to leaving the Islands, but to create an environment that would entice young people to stay and make a life on the Islands.
Led by successful entrepreneur Adrian Fox, the Fox Foundation was on site shortly after the 2019 Hurricane Dorian moved through the area. Fox directed volunteers working with the Fox Foundation to bring personal boats for two purposes. He directed one group to assist in evacuating hurricane and subsequent flooding victims from the area and relocate them to a safe place. Still other volunteers were instructed to load their boats with generators and food items for those living in areas that had not flooded.
This is not an isolated incident for Fox and his Foundation. Fox regularly positions individuals to be at the ready in the case of a natural disaster in the area. These individuals are set up to assist first responders in getting to areas affected by natural disasters, not only providing aid but assisting in medical care and evacuation of affected individuals. Fox has also commandeered individuals volunteering with the Fox Foundation to be ready and able to assist in any number of crises that may affect Fox’s native Bahamas and other areas of the Caribbean.
Fox also works diligently to lessen the socio-economic divide currently plaguing the Caribbean Islands. Born and raised in the Bahamas himself, Fox knows all too well the issues that are causing young people and families to leave the area en masse.
However, as Adrian continued through high school, he would set himself apart from his peers in a major way. Adrian would not leave school to work full time. In fact, he would actually establish his own businesses. By the time Adrian had successfully completed his high school career, he had also opened three businesses of his own: Foxies Liquor, Foxies Restaurant and Bar, and The Obsessions Designs, which was a clothing store.
Fox understands that in order to move ahead in the entrepreneurship world, one must have an education. He makes consistent efforts to promote a quality education for all young people in Fox’s beloved Bahamian and Caribbean Islands.
Fox has never forgotten his early years working in the service industry; he has also never forgot the time he put into his studies, which were just as important to him as his time at work. Fox was working at the Atlantis destination resort while also establishing his own business ventures. When he wasn’t working, he was studying. Adrian knew from a young age that an education was his key to a successful life.
Even though Adrian was immensely successful on his own merits (the businessman’s net worth is an estimated $400 million), he was saddened by the situation of his fellow Islanders. He understood all too well that many of his beloved countryfolk lived in little better than third-world conditions. He understood that many young people – whom he also knew were the lifeblood of the Islands and their collective future – were leaving the Islands in large numbers. Without people willing to stay on the Islands, Fox’s beloved homeland would wax into ruin. This was another driving factor in Fox’s establishment of the Fox Foundation.
One of Fox’s major objectives as a founder of the Fox Foundation and as a philanthropist is to provide a critical precedent for establishing more coordinated global relief when working to lessen the humanitarian issues that oppress the peoples of the Bahamas as well as the Caribbean Islands. Dr. Fox hopes that his global connections as a businessman and philanthropist will open the door for him to garner support from individuals all over the world to assist in making life better for the people of his beloved Bahamas.
One of the main missions of the Fox Foundation is to make sure that all native Islanders get not only an adequate education, but one that they can use to make a better life for themselves and their families. Fox understands that not all young people want to work in the service industry, so he supports training for twenty-first century jobs that will not only keep young people on the Islands but also attract the best and brightest as well. Fox understands that young people in the area will only stay if they believe they have a future in the area.
Most of all, Dr. Fox wants to see not only educational improvements in the Islands, but he also wants to see improvements to all aspects of life for the young people of the Islands. Dr. Fox himself has worked in many of the same jobs as many young people of the Caribbean Islands have done; he understands the value of hard work, but he also wants there to be alternatives to work in the service industry.
At the end of the day, the Caribbean and particularly the Bahamas have a strong champion for the Islands and the prospering of the area. Dr. Adrian Fox wishes to make life better for his fellow Bahamians and those across the beautiful Caribbean Islands. He refuses to give up on this endeavor, and the people of the Islands will benefit from his tenacious actions.
