MIAMI \u2013 It\u2019s easy to forget that before Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, the island was in dire economic straights. One of the organizations that realizes this the most is the 50-year-old Boys & Girls Club Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

Before Maria, 90% of the group\u2019s participants\u2014mainly youths ages six to 18\u2014were below the poverty level on the island, according to President Olga Ramos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at that, our participants are lacking the main resources and opportunities that other kids on the island or outside of the island have,\u201d Ramos says in this interview with Beet.TV.<\/p>\n

While Boys & Girls Club Puerto Rico<\/a> mainly provides educational services, after the hurricane hit \u201cwe saw the need and knew that we had to do some things differently,\u201d Ramos adds.<\/p>\n

So the organization converted its centers to community centers to provide food, water, shelter and other primary needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now because of the storm, most of our schools are closed. The ones that are open are providing immediate services. Breakfast and lunch and some sort of educational support,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Phase one of the group\u2019s post-hurricane is to provide limited services from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., owing to the lack of electricity. \u201cOur second phase will be to expand from eight to six so we can pretty much provide parents relief and they can go back to work while we take care of their kids with educational support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramos cites a financial gap of $8 million, $5 million of which is to continue providing whatever services the organization can and continue to pay employees. The other $3 million would be earmarked for an expansion of services\u2014mostly meals and educational assistance. Some $2.5 million of the $8 million has been collected to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny contribution that we can get from private donors will be used toward our mission, which is to develop our kids and youths to their full potential,\u201d Ramos says.<\/p>\n

Boys & Girls Club Puerto Rico\u2019s longer-term aim is to narrow the gap between its beneficiaries and youths whose families are better off financially.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are diversifying our offer so we are able to cater to what the island economy\u2019s needs are, which are in tourism, health and technology and science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stand With Puerto, The Industry Steps Up\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This video reports on the pressing issues facing Puerto Rico and the organizations that are having an impact.\u00a0It is part of a media industry initiative titled Stand With Puerto Rico<\/a>. It is organized by Beet.TV and Omnicom Media Group along with founding partners\u00a0AT&T AdWorks and Teads.\u00a0Please find additional videos from the series here<\/a>.\u00a0The series was recorded in Miami at the Festival of Media\/LATAM on October 30.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MIAMI \u2013 It\u2019s easy to forget that before Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, the island was in dire economic straights. One of the organizations that realizes this the most is the 50-year-old Boys & Girls Club Puerto Rico. Before Maria, 90% of the group\u2019s participants\u2014mainly youths ages six to 18\u2014were below the poverty level on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[6849],"tags":[3851,5111,5938,6866],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}