We have to talk about charity.
The fires are outrageous, The trauma is excruciating, The tensions are high, the emotions are so frayed, so raw, so tragic. You cannot understand what people are going with. You cannot imagine the decimation, the incineration, the ash, the paying mortgages on a furnace like it is. It is so outrageous that it's immeasurable. It is jarring. One day people had house pride, the next day they're homeless. This is not
a celebrity crisis. This is not a billionaire's crisis. The media is clinging to the Paris Hilton Malibu dream house model when there are thousands of people who have nothing that are so in shock and zombies and you just have to really absorb that.
And there are.
I'm just going to say it, I'm just gonna say it, there are deceased animals and wildlife everywhere, pets everywhere. It is it is the financial, the emotional, the physical and mental health damage that's going to occur after this is the likes I don't think I've ever seen. It's just it's not like there's going to be a hurricane. There's a warning tape up your windows like it's not the same. And it also and I'm not comparing disasters, this is
not Disasters are not a competitive sport. I've seen the worst of hurricanes. They are all horrendous. We are still in Paradise, we are still in Maui. We are still in North Carolina, and they've been trolling me, the North Carolina people because they too don't like seeing the celebrity headlines and they feel like they didn't get enough attention, and I'm going to give them attention. I just cannot be badger right now about a place that I used to live in that I know a lot of people
who live in that has tremendously suffered. I have met people who have lost five homes among seventeen people. I have met special needs parents that are out on the street. I've met people who've been in four different homes on couches, being evacuated back to back. I've met people who have no they feel they never knew that they'd ever say I'm homeless.
They can't say it out loud.
You're talking to a group of people in a church and they have to truly say that they're homeless. But they still have to pay their mortgage, okay, and they have nothing. They don't have a suitcase. And I'm going to say this. It's not popular. I'll say it until I'm blue in the face. They need dignity and pride. Do not give them your old clothes. Do not clean out your closet. Dump it off somewhere, because I'm going to share you the cold, hard truth. It ends up
in a dumpster, it ends up in a landfill. It is Oh, I don't care if you pretend you thought it was nice. It's a shirt you probably said you would painted, and you dumped it. You got rid of it, and it has to be it's not even if it's even new in tags, and it's not completely organized and merchandised. If you have to do it, which I don't suggest that you do, a you sell it this I do suggest. Sorry, If you have to do it with I don't, which
I don't suggest that you do. You have it in individual bags that say men's small t shirts, women's sweatpants.
But don't do it. Okay.
They don't want old clothes. They used to have nice clothes. They don't want old clothes. They want their pride and dignity and be strong. We built a warehouse in a day that's the size of a small costco like structure,
merchandized organized. It will be filled with every type of aid, from pets to babies, to children, to mattresses to building supplies, to hygiene to socks, to hydration packets, to cups, to beans, to food, to clothes, to anything somebody would need, to chargers, anything somebody would need in a crisis, and we will. We will be garnering other people's aid. We did this for Hurricane Maria. Other people raise a lot of aid and they don't know what to do with it. They
get excited. Celebrities are coming to us now, Celebrities that have raised millions of dollars that don't know what to do with it. They will bring it to us because they trust us. They know that I am a business person and that we will seamlessly, efficiently economically distribute this aid and this money. Because go fund me people are raising gofundmes and they don't know what to do with it.
They've gotten excited. They want everyone to donate. It's not as easy to run a charity as it looks on television, and not everyone is a business person, which means not everyone's a philanthropist, because philanthropy is business. So if you ever meet somebody who's touchy feely and not a business person, a cold, hard business person, I don't mean and they don't have a heart. And I don't mean that they
are cold in their bedside manner. I mean you need to know that they are a business person without any hesitation. If someone is not a business person, they are not supposed to be running your money or your aid, because aid is also money. We have now raised approximately twenty million dollars in aid and money, and we helped a group morally by not demoralizing them and talking to them. I saw this group, I thought I was at a funeral. I was at a church, and it looked like a
bunch of zombies. It really did traumatize And I sat down with them and they were yesterday they had a home, and today they're homeless. And they did not know what to do. They did not know where to move, they didn't know what. I don't mean physically, I mean their bodies, social security, dialysis, special needs, mental health, physical chronic illness. They literally couldn't move. And I applauded them for getting up and advocating for themselves and their families, coming and
doing something that they feel lacks dignity. They're coming for what they feel as a handout. And one woman said to me, with tears in her eyes, I knew you would come, and it broke my heart. But I sat there and I said, you are advocating for your family, and the fact that you are here shows that you are. You are a survivor because you did something which you felt lacked pride, and it has tremendous pride because what's going to happen today is A. We're going to give
you money to stay in a hotel for a week. B. We're going to give you essentials that you need.
And they were like, but.
We have to take things because people are giving things away, and what do we do.
We can't put them anywhere.
I'm like, you don't have to panic right now, because you don't have to go to a dumpster filled with clothes and pie and pick through. And they all nodded that it was demoralizing and that they want to have pride, and that the only thing that they come in here with is pride. That's the only thing they have left they have not a single item to their name, and in many cases not pets, and none of their friends have houses either. And I told them, when people ask you,
and they nodded their heads, what can I do? I'm like, have a puppet show? What do you think you can do? I said, you tell them what you need. You don't get vague, and you tell them exactly what you need and how you need it. And there will be time for you to get the things that you need, because we're gonna be there for right now to restore your faith and give you some financial assistance for the rebuild, the physical rebuild, and also we relocate. So we're going
to relocate you. We're going to help you find housing. But more importantly, you need to take a week right now to get your they said. Three of them said they hadn't slept in forty eight hours, like eyeballs open the whole time, watching their house burn to the ground, panic stricken, not knowing what to do, no id, no wallet, nothing, They did not think it was going to burn to the ground. Some of their areas have never ever had
this happen before. It was complete and utter shock. So I said, you're gonna take a week, to sleep, to rest, to take care of yourself, to get yourself together, to be there for your family, to be grateful that you're alive. And then you're gonna pull yourself up fro your boot. You're gonna connect with this community. This is your family now. These people next to you came here like you. You're going to talk to them. You're going to share resources.
This church will be your hub. This church will get you everyone's contact information. One of them said, I haven't smiled in a weak And more importantly than the money or the stuff or the aid or the suitcase or anything, they wanted to tell their story. They each told their story. They wanted someone to hug them. They wanted to know that somebody cared. They didn't want this to be a
celebrity crisis either. They don't want to be at the bottom of the bin where everybody thinks it's billionaires and
then their story is belittled, their story doesn't matter. So they walked out of there a different person because they have a community now, and this is going to be a very serious thing for people to rebuild, and they need their community, and they need their mental health, and they're going to need therapy, and a therapist reach out to me, and immediately I connected them because I want them to get online or free or this group is
their therapy. Many people are loners like myself, and they stay home and there's going to be a mental health crisis. You mark my words. This is a tragedy. It is an apocalypse. So anybody you hear saying they can afford, stop it, because it's not true. Two thousand children at one of the church is completely displaced, no school, nothing, nothing to their name. Eighty nine year old woman losing their home like that, every story exists, cancer patient lose
their home. I mean like it is horrendous. And it came on fast because I was on the phone with someone who said, I'm evacuated twenty minutes later. If they hadn't gotten out right that moment twenty minutes later was the people jumping out of the cars and the cars being incinerated or bulldozed, like it was complete chaos. And also, you today take five minutes and you decide in your mind you don't have to go get neurotic, But in your mind you go through your house and you say,
these are the five things I would take. You can put it on a note, put it on your phone. These are the five things.
I would take.
Is it as safe as it? Documents? Is it art? Is it pictures? Is it jewelry? Is it something someone gave you? Is it a stuffed animal from your childhood? Whatever it is.
Because people are going in every minute, they're like, wait, that's there. Oh my god, that's there. I forgot about that.
Everything they have, they're accordion folder of bills, everything they were dealing with. Everything they have a blank slate. Think about the bills you have, the taxes you have to pay, the things you go look up, the things you have to go find. Let me go in there is it there? You know, where's the paperwork for that?
It's gone.
So it's just extremely different because it's ash.
It is gone.
When dead bodies need to never be recovered, they are burned. So these people's belongings are just not they are non existent. So if you want to donate wherever you donate, you donate to a business person. You do not have to donate to be strowing. You donate to whatever speaks to you.
But you look at how much goes to the charity, and you could go do a deeper dive because we did a dive yesterday comparing us to a certain government and sees there was no one who was more lean, efficient, cost effective, immediate and zero waste and gets things done, stretches a dollar like you've never seen nobody.
There's not one group that does that.
So Bethany doc And if I sound aggressive, it's just because I'm just like I've seen a lot Bethany dot com, slash be Strong. Spencer and Heidie, Spencer and Heidi lost their home. I know Spencer. I like Spencer. I've texted with Spencer. I ran into him on the street. I acted and I felt like it was running into Lady Gaga.
And honestly, I was early then.
I was an early adapter because I ran into him like he was Lady Gaga and now Spencer and now Heidi's Lady Gaga. So I was texting him and he told me early on before it was on social media, that he lost his house, and I, you know, I said what did you take? And he said Berkins And I said you need you know? And I laughed because I mean that was the first thing he said was humor. So it's pretty much is going to be a foreshadowing to what I'm going to share with you if you
don't already know it. And I said, you need anything, and he said, people will send things, which is also nice, Like I was ready to send him, you know, a lot of things. And I said, you want to stay in my house in the Hamptons and he's bogged down and I and he I just thought, oh my god, and they lost their house and it became real. And then he did this one post that I feel like was a tipping point. Yes, posting vide he lost his
house was a tipping point. Yes, posting the in real time that it was burning down was was a tipping point.
But I think when he held a drink and said and he hit a million followers, and he said, to think all I had, you know, I'm paraphrasing, to think all I had to do was have my house burned down to hit a million like he infused comedy at a very traumatic time, and then he infused emotion and cry like a baby when he single handedly, unilaterally, with the help of the entire community of TikTok, put his wife Heidi's album, which is fifteen years old, number one
on iTunes in fourteen countries, and then you're watching this unfold, and you're watching this unfold on Instagram, and you're watching him then literally troll and bully people that he says need to be posting about it, and they're falling in the line and doing it. People that don't even like them. From the Hills people. He's shaded on the Hills people. You know he's talking about Alex Cooper. He's just Alex Earl. He's just saying, do it, and people are doing it.
So the power of social media in a time of crisis, which I've discussed as it pertains to relief efforts, because he has said I want money, I want to be famous. I want to build my house back. We had nothing. We put all this into this album fifteen years old. I spent all this money on crystals. They burned to the ground. He started sobbing like a baby about in a matter of a week his house burnt down. And Heidi is doing Good Morning America and recording an album
in a studio that's America, ladies and gentlemen. That's what people want to see. That's the opposite of the Kardashians in the superficial, which is the name of her album, Fame World. I'm not comparing that to the tragedy that I've seen with special needs children and poverty stricken people who've lost their homes. I'm saying, in the land of entertainment and in the land of pop culture superficiality, Heidi
and Spencer took the ball and ran with it. Took the ball and ran with it, went viral all of it and congratulations it was.
It's extraordinary, and I think that's all.
And then North Carolina, Okay, in North Carolina, I'm being badgered about North Carolina. We sent many, many semi trucks filled with aid thousands of dollars to small businesses. That being said, it's not the celebrity crisis that's being marketed as a Hollywood Walk of Fame crisis as this is. And they are devastated, they are traumatized. They are on propane lines in the freezing cold weather and they are begging, and they are enraged by the media that they're ignored.
They feel ignored. So I hear them. I am going to help them. I Am going to focus on what's going on there and find out where the problems lie. Is A state is a federal But most importantly, I'm going to say to them, please do not badger me, Please do not troll me. I am thinking about you, as I've said multiple times, and explain what we've done. I am not the federal and the state government. I'm not the government of North Carolina, and I'm not FEMA.
I am a woman with a child, a business, and a platform and a very good gift of connecting and being a messenger and a businesswoman who knows how to run an operation and strategically delegate what I want. And I have delegated that I want some attention paid to North Carolina. And of course it's on my back, and it has to be my attention because otherwise it won't get the media attention. So I'm one person, and I haven't slept in two weeks, and I got off a red eye to see my daughter for a kiss and
a hug before she went to school this morning. So I will do the very best that I can. But I am only one person, and it is a tragedy all around.
It is not.
Comparing tragedies is not a competitive sport. We cannot compare tragedies. I can give some context based on other tragedies, because I've seen many, and I've been all over the world to see them. But I am proud of what I've built and what we do. And no one is more lean, cost effective and efficient, no one, And there is none run by a better business person themselves themselves. People invest and people donate too, but there is I don't know.
I've not met anyone who's a marketer business lean, efficient, economical, streamlined human being like myself.
That's it. And I've used to produce multimillion.
Dollar events and I always had the best bottom line of anyone because I know how to stretch a dollar. And my partner Michael, has showed me opposite compared, and it's all public information, but against government entities that we do so much more with a dollar than them, not like a little like hundreds and thousands and millions of dollars.
More So, you donate a dollar, you find out where it's going specifically and how it's being stretched because you donate to be strong Bethany dot com slash be strong, it's one hundred percent goes to the effort. But not even that, then how do we spend the money. It could be one hundred percent goes to the effort, because I could buy the most overpriced stupid shit, or do it in a dumb way, or give it to people that aren't vetted like trust and believe that one hundred
percent is maximizing your dollar, maximizing. I saw the numbers yesterday on a spreadsheet. It is staggering what people waste, not meaning the percent and ninety four percent goes to hear three but not that meaning how they spend the money and how it gets wasted.
So just know that there is nobody who stretches.
A dollar like us. And time we're first and we're last. We're first and we're last. We're still in paradise, Maui, North Carolina, Ukraine were last.
So restore faith, rebuild communities, relocate. Bye.