Bethenny Frankel has raised $25m in aid for Ukrainian refugees through her nonprofit foundation, BStrong.
“BSTRONG UPDATE: we have committed 15m in aid & have raised over TEN MILLION DOLLARS in $ donations for the refugee relocation program,” the Real Housewives of New York City star said in a tweet on Friday, 4 March. “This is MAJOR.”
BStrong is a worldwide initiative in partnership with Global Empowerment Mission, which Frankel launched in 2017, that provides emergency assistance to people in crisis.
Since Russia first invaded Ukraine on 24 February, Frankel has documented the progress her team has made in relief efforts for displaced Ukrainians on Instagram.
”We have set up our first of many border entry point relief camps at Medyka to initially provide basic relief to refugees & relocate them to safe & comfortable locations with friends & family,” the Skinnygirl founder captioned her Instagram post on 26 Februrary. “Our 10M in aid is en route & we have raised 1.5M dollars & counting. A $250 donation can relocate a family, $50 gets someone a train ticket out…you can make a huge difference in the world.”
On 3 March, Frankel detailed to the Independent some of the behind-the-scenes work her foundation has done to aid Ukrainian refugees.
“We have $10 million worth of aid being transported from a warehouse, likely into Poland, and driven into Ukraine,” she wrote. “We’ve connected with two trusted people inside the Ukrainian government and that’s going to help us with getting that aid in safely and distributing it sensibly.”
Frankel also shared that she intends to step foot into Ukraine herself, despite certain obstacles. “I do want to go to Ukraine myself and I’ve been looking into how to do that,” she said. “I had a plan to go to Poland and help with those distribution lines, but where my crew is on the Ukraine-Poland border there’s no cell service or internet available at the moment.”
Since 2017, BStrong has provided relief to humanitarian crises in Australia, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Bahamas and more. Frankel believes that the key to a successful relief effort is being flexible and adaptable to constantly new information.
“When you’re a small philanthropic organization, you can keep learning according to the information at hand,” she said. “People appreciate when you’re the kind of organization that can respond like that; everyone wants transparency and they want to feel like they’re making a difference.”
