“My hero is someone who helps when they feel helpless,” Frankel, 47, toldPEOPLE Nowin an interview taped earlier this summer. “When they just simply don’t know what to do but figure it out along the way.”
When the devastation in Texas began, Frankel immediately started raising money and supplies via herB StrongCharity Program and her#ThisIsACrisis t-shirt line. Her efforts raised more than $300,000 in supplies and donations, and Frankel herself met with and helped local women and their families.
However, when Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc on Puerto Rico — causing ahistoric amount of damageand knocking out power to the entire island for several months — Frankel said it was a “very different animal.”
“It was hard for anybody to get relief there. I was told not to go because they had no water, no electricity,” she recalled. ” ‘You can’t go, you’ll get sick. It’s dangerous.’ And I thought, ‘Well, isn’t that why I have to go?’ ”
Courtesy Bethenny Frankel
“Getting involved in crisis relief, it’s changed my life… Puerto Rico brought together so many people for me, especially on this side. Many people in Miami, many people that I know and people who are not wealthy. Nurses, teachers, people who are unemployed, coming together, working 24 hours a day because people understood the gravity of the situation.”
She said seeing the victims cling to their families in the face of tragedy has led her to appreciate, even more, the life she shares with her 8-year-old daughter Bryn.
“Family is so much a part of surviving these things. People feel happy just that they’re with their family, just that they’re alive. People just seem so dedicated to their faith, their religion, their family. There’s a pride. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”
Frankel’s interviewwas taped before the sudden deathof her on-again, off-again boyfriendDennis Shieldsin August. TheReal Housewives of New York Citystar just shared a message with her nearly four million social media followers on Instagram andTwitterFriday in the wake of his death, writing, “Thank you,” and a red heart emoji.
source: people.com
