MIAMI \u2013 What took the federal government more than five days\u2014to begin assembling aid for hurricane-ravaged Vieques\u2014started the night of the storm among concerned citizens. That\u2019s when Brittany Roush and Kelly Thompson, Editor and Publisher of Vieques Insider Magazine, started the group ViequesLove.<\/p>\n

It was done \u201cwith the intent of raising thirty thousand or forty thousand dollars,\u201d says Roush, who is Principal at ViequesLove. As of Nov. 6, the group had raised $873,696 from 7,084 donors via its GoFundMe<\/a> website.<\/p>\n

In this interview with Beet.TV, Roush recounts how it was clear from the start that the island\u2019s infrastructure would be ravaged and that residents would be displaced in large numbers. But the day after ViequesLove was created, there was no word of government aid coming to the island.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that in all of our original discussions that had never even been a remote possibility,\u201d Roush says. \u201cThe worst-case scenario would be five days. That\u2019s what it was with Katrina and that was the worst FEMA response to date.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the fifth day approached, it became apparent that nothing was happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we spoke with a few people, all via Facebook, and found out that Robert Becker<\/a> was going down to the island pretty much any way he could get down there,\u201d Roush says, referencing the veteran Democratic political campaign manager.<\/p>\n

Efforts to find a boat to ferry Becker to Vieques came up short due to port conditions. \u201cSo we immediately shifted to finding a plane. And we found a plane. And we found a pilot who was willing to take this on. To our knowledge, we were only the second group to have gotten a plane onto the ground<\/a> on Vieques after the storm.\u201d<\/p>\n

It all came together \u201cbecause people worked together. I think that speaks very much to the kind of people that move to Vieques or live on Vieques and the way that they just are,\u201d says Roush.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s now sure what the future holds for ViequesLove. \u201cBut we know that for as long as we have the support of the community and we have the funding, we want to be there to serve the people of Vieques,\u201d she adds. \u201cThat might be schools, it might be rebuilding projects. We don\u2019t know. We\u2019re going to continue to take it day by day for now.\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 What took the federal government more than five days\u2014to begin assembling aid for hurricane-ravaged Vieques\u2014started the night of the storm among concerned citizens. That\u2019s when Brittany Roush and Kelly Thompson, Editor and Publisher of Vieques Insider Magazine, started the group ViequesLove. It was done \u201cwith the intent of raising thirty thousand or forty […]<\/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":[3851,5111,6873,6874,6875,6876,6877],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48734"}],"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=48734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}