In 2001, Andy Fernandez watched a news report about 13-year-old Sherry Maresco, a South Florida girl who died from a drug overdose while unsupervised, and something shifted. He turned to his wife Janeth, a former educator, and said simply: "We should go to that trailer park and see if there are other kids that we can talk to." That impulse—born from grief and a determination to prevent other tragedies—became the seed of Firewall Centers, a Broward County nonprofit that now reaches approximately 2,000 students daily through free after-school education, mentoring, and life-changing support.
What makes Firewall Centers extraordinary is not just its scale, but the sacrifice behind it. In 2003, Andy and Janeth owned a successful manufacturing business. Rather than expand it, they chose to walk away. A year later, Andy sold his warehouse and equipment outright. "That's when I sold off my little warehouse, my equipment and said this is what we are going to do for a while and see where it goes," he recalled. That leap of faith, made nearly a quarter-century ago, has fundamentally altered the trajectory of thousands of young lives.
Starting with weekly gatherings in the Davie mobile home park where Sherry had lived, the Fernandez family and another couple from their church began with something deceptively simple: building relationships, character, and faith. But the children quickly revealed deeper needs. "It's great to build their character, to talk about faith," Andy said. "But it's also necessary to provide them an education." The organization's name—derived from the biblical passage Zechariah 2:5—reflects its core purpose: creating protective barriers around vulnerable youth and helping them navigate life's most difficult challenges.
The impact ripples across individual lives in ways that numbers alone cannot capture. Take Abner Molina. He first walked through Firewall's doors as a hungry kid drawn by a simple offer: "They invited me in for a sandwich and I was like, 'Oh, free food,'" he recalled. What he discovered instead was mentorship from Andy Fernandez and a pathway to possibility. Today, at 31, Molina is the CEO of his own technology company. "He's been a solid rock for me in terms of mentorship," Molina said. His ten-to-twelve-year journey from uncertain child to business founder is not an outlier—it is the organization's north star.
From that single mobile home park to fourteen Broward County schools, Firewall Centers has grown into a transformative force. Yet growth has not diluted purpose. The organization still honors the memory of Sherry Maresco, the child whose tragedy sparked it all. As Andy reflected, "I think that she would definitely say that she made a difference." While Sherry never had the chance to realize her own dreams, tens of thousands of young people have realized theirs because of her story and the Fernandez family's willingness to act on their grief.
The future expands further. Firewall Centers is preparing to open in Miami-Dade County schools and eventually other states. But for the people running it, the mission remains unchanged: helping children build brighter futures, one relationship, one mentoring moment, one act of love at a time.