Press

While thousands of dollars in gift cards and hotel bills have been paid out, displaced residents say they’re afraid of what will happen to them in the long term

"They are going to basically have to start all over again," Michael Capponi, the president of nonprofit Global Empowerment Mission, told the Associated Press. "Some of them don't have insurance, and they've lost everything they worked all their lives for."

Capponi's organization, Global Empowerment Mission, has distributed roughly $75,000 in gift cards among surfside survivors, and he's also working with hotel and condo owners to find places they can live for the next two months.

Global Empowerment Mission has been distributing cash cards to families and survivors, totaling over $230,000.

Michael Capponi’s Global Empowerment Mission, which helps worldwide with everything from the freezes in Texas to flooding in Guyana, is hard at work distributing GEM Bstrong Visa cards, family necessities kits, and other crucial items to survivors. GEM is inviting everyone to help sort supplies at their Doral Warehouse at 1810 NW 94th Street on Fridays from noon to 2 pm. You can also donate money to its Surfside program or to the residents directly.

“Most of the people I met left with the shirts on their backs,” said Michael Capponi, the founder of Global Empowerment Mission, a nonprofit humanitarian organization that has partnered with BStrong, a foundation supported by Bethenny Frankel, the entrepreneur and reality television star, to help support the survivors of the apartment collapse.

The Global Empowerment Mission BStrong established a Champlain Tower Residents Fund, where 100% of donations will be distributed amongst survivors to assist them them with short term cash for essentials.

The Miami Heat and other local organizations including the Global Empowerment Mission have also established funds. Businessmen including Puerto Rican billionaire Orlando Bravo, co-founder of the private equity firm Thoma Bravo, donated $250,000, WFLA reported.

That money will go toward all the things that insurance won’t cover for those who survived, and as direct support for the families of those who died. But as Michael Capponi, founder of Global Empowerment Mission, a Miami-based nonprofit organization, said, “Sometimes the bigger funds are hard to access right away, so we made our fund very specific and whatever is raised is being distributed equally among all the residents, period.”

He filed a lawsuit against the building Saturday and is currently working with Global Empowerment Mission to assist survivors — an initiative that former “Real Housewife” Bethenny Frankel donated to.

He’s a survivor of the Champlain Towers collapse. Now he’s receiving aid from Capponi’s Global Empowerment Mission. The non-profit group is giving everyone who has lost their homes $1,500 in prepaid credit cards, along with a care package that contains an electric toothbrush, socks, phone chargers, and other basic necessities.

Donate to Global Empowerment Mission: Michael Capponi’s organization, Global Empowerment Mission, has set up a Champlain Tower Residents Fund. Packing begins at 11:00 a.m

"Today, in partnership with @globalempowermentmission, BStrong is distributing $500-$1000 each in cash cards directly to displaced residents in need from the tragic collapse of Champlain Towers in Surfside, Florida. We’re also supplying the Shul of Bal Harbour and other local community centers our BStrong Family Necessities Kits for the entire community affected," Frankel wrote on social media.

“Global Empowerment Mission alongside it’s national and international partners and celebrity support has distributed over 84 million dollars in the last three years in aid relief to 30 countries and all 50 states; this being one of the driving factors that encouraged the CCC to partner with GEM,” says CCC member H.E. Gilbert Boustany.

With over 10 dignitaries and many local celebrities present from the Miami Caribbean Consular Corps, the Global Empowerment Mission Bstrong and transportation partner UC Group unveil the new Global Empowerment Mission Headquarters in Doral, Florida. The Caribbean Consul Corps spoke of the devastation that has ensued in prior years in the Caribbean, and, this year, in preparation for hurricane season, the Global Empowerment Mission alongside the UC Group and Bstrong will proactively activate the disaster relief.

Over in Doral Tuesday, the Global Empowerment Mission and the BStrong organization announced new partnerships to support hurricane relief throughout the U.S. and the Caribbean, with a warehouse full of goods and a team ready for any disaster.

Miami, 15 jun (EFE News).- El Caribbean Consular Corps (CCC) y la Global Empowerment Mission (GEM), entre otros, sellaron este martes en Miami una alianza para ayudar al Caribe en la temporada de huracanes.

In Miami, Michael Capponi, the founder and executive director of the non-profit Global Empowerment Mission, is filling containers with pre-packed boxes of food, water, face masks and hand gel to send to the island.

Singer Kevin Lyttle — best known for the 2003 hit song Turn me On — and his Janice Lyttle Foundation are working with Miami-based agency Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) and Caribbean Strong Foundation to send relief packages to persons affected by the disaster.

THE GLOBAL Empowerment Mission last week delivered relief supplies to evacuation centres at the St Mary’s Roman Catholic School and the Calliaqua Anglican School and to the group of entertainers who are distributing items to evacuees who are in private homes.