Friend of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Carlos Sanchez.Mr. Sanchez beat out 131 contestants with this video, which garnered 3,333 votes and netted him the $50,000 grand prize.

The contest was launched in January and offered $100,000 in prizes for the best video that responded to the statement, ?This is What Free Enterprise Means to Me.?

Mr. Sanchez?s video shows his journey from the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, to Maplewood, by way of his career as a fitness trainer and his creation of a popular Web site to highlight his sneaker collection. It includes shots of his classes in Maplewood, where he puts clients through boot camp training and preaches his message of fitness.

?I?m Carlos Sanchez,? he says at the end, ?and I am free enterprise.?

Contest voting ended last week, so it was a weekend of waiting for Mr. Sanchez.

?It was suffering not knowing,? said Mr. Sanchez.

But Mr. Sanchez, 46, who aspires to bring his fitness and anti-obesity message to all 50 states, said he felt pretty confident that he could win because, ?I worked my butt off marketing it and getting people to vote.?

He said he sent out e-mails, every day, twice a day ? to 50,000 people.

?This is your daily reminder,? Mr. Sanchez would write. ?Don?t forget to vote for me.?

Those 50,000 (or at least 48,000 of them) e-mail addresses mostly consist of the Internet followers on his popular video blog and YouTube channel, SneakGeekz.tv, which is about collectible, vintage sneakers for sneaker-fanatics, or ?sneakerheads.?

Mr. Sanchez films and edits the SneakGeekz.tv videos himself. He has 48,000 followers and is a partner with YouTube, with which he shares revenue from the ads posted on his videos.

That revenue has allowed him to post ads on and finance his Maplewood Boot camp blog. He has about 1,200 followers on his fitness list. He also has Twitter followers and a Facebook page.

Bryan Goettel, the manager of media relations for the Chamber of Commerce in Washington, explained in an e-mail to The Local that ?the video contest was held online through the United States Chamber?s Campaign for Free Enterprise, part of our effort to highlight the most innovative, creative, or compelling story of how free enterprise has benefited the launch of a business, invention, or idea.?

Contestants each submitted a three-minute video responding to the statement, ?Why they represented free enterprise.?

?These were small business owners, inventors, youth organizers and many more,? wrote Mr. Goettel. ?These entries were narrowed down to 25, based on overall views during nearly a month on YouTube. From there, a panel of judges chose five finalists. Then, it was up to the public. The finalist with the most online votes over the last three weeks, from May 10 through June 2, was declared the winner.?

Mr. Sanchez said he came upon the contest after he received an e-mail from the organization. He had once taken a Chamber of Commerce workshop, he said.

In his video submission, he talk about the hefty odds he had to beat to get where he is today.

He said he was born and raised in a rough neighborhood in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where drugs, gangs and violence were prevalent. Caught up in that environment, he was sidetracked for a while, he said, and dropped out of high school.

?I always wanted to get out, though,? said Mr. Sanchez. ?It was a tough neighborhood.?

He earned his G.E.D. and then joined the Navy. Afterward, he moved back to the neighborhood, was married and eventually became a single parent to two daughters.

?That?s when I started looking for a job to give me the flexibility to raise my two young daughters,? said Mr. Sanchez.

He became a personal trainer in New York City and met his current wife, Jennifer. They came to Maplewood six years ago and now have four children.

Part of Mr. Sanchez?s goal as a blogger is to get his story out and let people know that they can get out from under and become successful, too, he said.

The Free Enterprise competition gave him another platform to get that message out, he said. He said he had been wanting to do a video on his story, but was not sure how to do it.

?The competition gave me a reason to make the video,? said Mr. Sanchez.

His three-minute video opens up in Bedford-Stuyvesant.The grafitti-covered buildings in the video are across the street from the Sumner Housing Projects, where he was born and raised, and he still has relatives that live there today.

He said his dream is to travel the country and share his story with more people and inspire them to fight obesity by forming their own community boot camp fitness programs. (Yes, he said, he might be going to Disney World.)

?I just want to share my story,? said Mr. Sanchez. ?Whether it?s by inspiring people to start a business or to not give up.?