Bethenny Frankel is feeling “unstoppable” after she recently surpassed her $100 million goal in Ukranian relief efforts. Ahead of reaching her milestone, the Skinnygirl founder spoke EXCLUSIVELY with HollywoodLife and revealed how she feels about her successful BStrong Foundation helping those in need as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues the country’s assaults on Ukraine.
The Real Housewives of New York alum explained how the experience with her charitable operation, in collaboration with nonprofit partner Global Empowerment Mission (GEM), has changed her. “It made me realize that we are unstoppable,” Bethenny said. “My focus is helping people whose lives have been ravaged by unforeseen circumstances. They are in desperate need of aid and an immediate solution.”
The entrepreneur has been in contact with Dancing With the Stars pro and Ukraine native, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who has shipped several hundred thousand pounds of emergency goods through his own humanitarian aid effort, Baranova 27. “We told him to see what we are doing because he was looking to do some aid distribution. We are happy to help him in any of his endeavors as these are his people,” said Bethenny.
“I connected him with my team, and he was blown away at the massive scale of our operation and logistics. He visited one of my warehouses, and he was shook. You have to see it to believe it,” Bethenny added. “[Maks] wants to continue to raise awareness and show people the magnitude of our operation. We have the capability to distribute hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in global aid. We provide the vehicle for massive corporations to donate global aid to our warehouses. Then we can facilitate distribution.”
BSTRONG UPDATE: we have committed 15m in aid & have raised over TEN MILLION DOLLARS in $ donations for the refugee relocation program. This is MAJOR. @GEMmissions bethenny.con/bstrong
— Bethenny Frankel (@Bethenny) March 4, 2022
“We are the hub where many brand name organizations will come to receive aid for their efforts. We are like a free aid distribution center. We started this model in Puerto Rico when we were amassing the nation’s aid. People raise large amounts of money and aid but then have no clue how to distribute either,” the entrepreneur noted. “This is a shockingly common issue when people with no experience do large scale raises with no detailed distribution plan. This is our wheelhouse, skill set, and specialty.”
Bethenny’s relief effort, through her BStrong initiative and partnership with GEM, had arrived on the second day of the crisis in Poland, along the Ukrainian-Polish border offering aid and support to refugees fleeing Ukraine, according to their website. “Since then, we have established solutions and strategies to recognize and assist all those affected not only in Ukraine, but those displaced in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Moldova, Georgia, and beyond.”