Summary Stats
Phase 1: Disaster Relief
On September 24, 2022 Category 4 Hurricane Ian caused catastrophic damage along the southwest coast of Florida leaving thousands of survivors devasted by the harsh impact. GEM Bstrong field teams were staging in place prepared to provide emergency aid. Our Global Headquarters is based just 2.5 hours away from the region. This gave us a tremendous advantage to supply a continuous flow of aid to the impacted communities. We provided our donors and supporters an overview of our methods and strategic planning for this devastating tragedy.
We have committed $5 million and 75 semi-truck through October/November 2022.
Our long-standing partners, Good360, Amazon and hundreds of American companies donate the necessary supplies to us. We also amass local community drive supplies from the entire country.
GEM is the official partner of Miami-Dade County and multiple municipalities. We are also working in tandem with the Florida Division of Emergency Management supporting local shelters.
We have already established a distribution hub in Fort Meyers, and by the weekend, we will establish two more hubs in Lee and Collier County for distributions.
In addition, over 100 Next Level Church volunteers will personally hand-deliver aid throughout Lee and Collier County with their own vehicles. They know the terrain best as they are locals. This allows us to spread relief to tens of thousands of families immediately. As our response continues and expands, (based on needs), we will be actively involved in reconstruction and sustainable development efforts for the foreseeable future.
Phase 2: The Gap Period
After great success of our housing relocation program in Europe for the Ukraine Crisis, GEM was fortunate to partner with Airbnb again for those affected by Hurricane Ian. The housing program offered free, short-term accommodation assistance to those who had lost their homes or those whose homes became inhabitable. We were able to assist 584 individuals with temporary housing through this program during its active period.
Partners
