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Tampa artist and two businessmen team up in hopes of donating a large sum of money to the homeless

Posted at 3:26 PM, May 23, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-23 18:20:13-04

Asad Yusupov was nearly homeless.

“I’ve dealt with having to wake up in the morning not having any food,” said Yusupov. “I would fish through quarters and pennies just to get taco bell at happy hour.”

Yusupov lives a very different life now as the co-creator of Meaningful Million. He and his business partner Kevin Stowe, started the company that designs, develops and markets websites and social media for small businesses.

The company is about more than the bottom line though, as they donate a majority of their profits to helping the homeless. To date, they have donated more than $20,000 to help men, women and children who are homeless.

Yusupov and Stowe said they wanted to help even more. So, Yusupov donated his Lamborghini to be auctioned off at a Tampa art show in September. The proceeds from the auction will be donated to “New Beginnings” in Tampa.

New Beginnings is a non-profit organization with a facility helping the homeless in Tampa through a recovery program that helps unaccompanied women, men and young adults over the age 18 with a safe place to live and an individualized, gender-responsive program of guidance and job training programs to help them stabilize their lives.

Yusupov said he wanted to make sure the auction yielded as much money as possible, so he enlisted the help of Tampa artist Jason Skeldon for a custom paint job like none other.

“[Portions of] the car glows in the dark,” said Skeldon.

Skeldon calls his style “Pop Art.” The Tampa artist started from the ground up, building his name into a national brand. He’s done work for former Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon, comedian Kevin Hart, Chance the Rapper, even rapper Vanilla Ice. Skeldon says none of it matters if you can’t give back.

"I believe as an artist nowadays you have to be a brand yourself and you have to be able to produce as much as you can,” said Skeldon.

To the auction winner, Asad says he just has one request:

"[It’s] like my biggest pet peeve when someone has a nice car and doesn’t drive it! We'd love for whoever actually picks the car to actually enjoy it, so people can see the art," said Skeldon.

The custom Lamborghini is being unveiled Wednesday night at Rock Brothers Brewing in Ybor City from 6 p.m.-8 p.m.

The car auction is scheduled for September 8 at Jason Skeldon’s Tampa show. The location is to be determined.