MIAMI \u2013 Sometimes, small miracles happen in the midst of huge catastrophes. The Puerto Rican island of Vieques was largely cut off from the world when Hurricane Maria made land on Sept. 20, but its Boys & Girls Club facility remained intact and quickly became a hub of relief activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily, our club in Vieques was directly affected but was not directly impacted. So we were able to reopen our club really fast,\u201d says Olga Ramos, President of Boys & Girls Club Puerto Rico. \u201cOur Vieques community is a small community and it\u2019s committed. And our Boys & Girls Club has become kind of the community center for the Vieques people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Club has been handling everything from assisting the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide Housing & Urban Development meals, Ramos explains in this interview with Beet.TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically our club is where all of the NGO\u2019s are coming together to provide relief efforts and help to the island. Besides our educational program, we\u2019re doing everything we can do to make sure that the community bounces back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Located eight miles east of the Puerto Rican mainland, Vieques relies on its own water sources, which were shut down by Hurricane Maria. So finding replacement supplies has been at the forefront of most relief efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast week, we were awarded by the Banco Popular Foundation a desalination plant that we\u2019re going to be taking to Vieques next Monday,\u201d Ramos says. \u201cAs well, we were able to get a community water tank that would allow us to provide water to the community, either filtered rain water or pond water and make sure that we provide safe water for our kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking into the medium term, we\u2019re partnering with other institutions to make sure that we provide a sustainable system where Vieques people can get purified water for drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sept. 20, when Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, the group ViequesLove was formed to provide assistance to the island. As of Nov. 9, the group had raised $879,420 from 7,122 donors via its GoFundMe<\/a> website.<\/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\u00a0Stand 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\u00a0from 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 Sometimes, small miracles happen in the midst of huge catastrophes. The Puerto Rican island of Vieques was largely cut off from the world when Hurricane Maria made land on Sept. 20, but its Boys & Girls Club facility remained intact and quickly became a hub of relief activity. \u201cLuckily, our club in Vieques […]<\/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":[3798,3851,5111,6857,6858,6866,6873,6883,6884],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48837"}],"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=48837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}