People have already raised $200,000 for the Fyre Festival caterer who paid workers from her own life savings.

Annie Reneau
02.04.19

Thanks to two Fyre Festival documentaries, a woman who was defrauded by the festival organizers is getting her due—plus a whole lot more.

Even if you didn't hear about the Fyre Festival debacle when it happened in the spring of 2017, you've probably heard about the popular Netflix and Hulu documentaries on the Fabulous-Festival-That-Wasn't.

Fyre Festival was supposed to be the music festival to end all music festivals. Promoted by prominent social media influencers and touted as a luxurious can't-miss event on a gorgeous island in the Bahamas, ads made it look and sound like it might actually be worth the thousands of dollars it cost to attend.

Turns out, it wasn't even close. A series of mishaps, mismanagement, and outright fraud meant the people who traveled to the island, fully expecting to be partying and pampered, got stuck sleeping in FEMA tents, lucky to be eating wrapped sandwiches and have drinkable water.

In short, it was a disaster of epic proportions, and its main organizer is now serving a six year jail sentence for fraud.

One restaurant owner ended up paying her workers $50,000 from her own life savings.

It wasn't just Fyre Festival attendees who were victims of the festival's massive flop. Many Bahamian business owners found themselves providing services for the organizers beforehand and preparing for throngs of festival-goers—and not getting paid a cent in the end.

One restaurant owner, Maryann Rolle, who runs the Exuma Point Bar & Grill where many of the initial attendees ate and drank when they arrived (before it all went spectacularly downhill), was never paid for her services. She ended up using $50,000 from her life savings to pay staff members.

"I had 10 persons working directly with me, just preparing food all day and all night, 24 hours," Rolle said in the Netflix documentary. "I had to literally pay all those people. I am here as a Bahamian, and they stand in my face every day."

People felt for the woman, and have shown it by opening their own wallets.

A GoFundMe has raised more than $200,000 for Rolle, who says she'll use the extra to help others in her situation.

A friend of Rolle in the U.S. set up a GoFundMe to help her recoup some of what she lost in the Fyre Festival mess. Fans of the documentary who sympathized with her situation have stepped up and raised an impressive $208,000 and counting, largely through small donations.

According to Rochester First, Rolle says she'll share the extra funds with other Bahamians who were financially hamstrung by the festival "People from all over the Bahamas are asking for help and I am willing to help people because that is my life—helping people," Rolle said.

She told the outlet her phone has been ringing so frequently with people asking for financial assistance that it's hard to sleep. She's eager to help, but she doesn't even have the money yet.

"The money hasn't reached into my physical hands yet to help people, to pass the love on and to make people happy," she said. "The money is still in the GoFundMe account and I am waiting to bless people."

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The doctor behind a revolutionary cancer test says it all started with the support of her refugee parents

As a child, Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia's parents didn't ask her what she wanted to be when she grew up. Instead, her father would ask, "Are you going to be a doctor? Are you going to be an engineer? Or are you going to be an entrepreneur?"

Little did he know that she would successfully become all three: an award-winning biomedical and mechanical engineer who performs cutting-edge medical research and has started multiple companies.

Bhatia holds an M.D. from Harvard University, an M.S. in mechanical engineering from MIT, and a PhD in biomedical engineering from MIT. Bhatia, a Wilson professor of engineering at MIT, is currently serving as director of the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine, where she's working on nanotechnology targeting enzymes in cancer cells. This would allow cancer screenings to be done with a simple urine test.

Bhatia owes much of her impressive career to her family. Her parents were refugees who met in graduate school in India; in fact, she says her mom was the first woman to earn an MBA in the country. The couple immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s, started a family, and worked hard to give their two daughters the best opportunities.

"They made enormous sacrifices to pick a town with great public schools and really push us to excel the whole way," Bhatia says. "They really believed in us, but they expected excellence. The story I like to tell about my dad is like, if you brought home a 96 on a math test, the response would be, 'What'd you get wrong?'"

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A funny new video nails the disturbing truth behind e-cigarettes

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Don't test on animals. That's something we can all agree on, right? No one likes to think of defenseless cats, dogs, hamsters, and birds being exposed to a bunch of things that could make them sick (and the animals aren't happy about it, either). It's no wonder so many people and organizations have fought to stop it. But did you ever think that maybe brands are testing products on us too, they're just not telling us they're doing it?

I know, I know, it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but that's exactly what e-cigarette brands like JUUL (which corners the e-cigarette market) are doing in this country right now, and young people are on the frontlines of the fallout. Most people assume that the government would have looked at devices that allow people to inhale unknown chemicals into their lungs BEFORE they hit the market. You would think that someone in the government would have determined that they are safe. But nope, that hasn't happened. And vape companies are fighting to delay the government's ability to evaluate these products.

So no one really knows the long-term health effects of e-cigarette use, not even JUUL's CEO, nor are they informing the public about the potential risks. On top of that, according to the FDA, there's been a 78% increase in e-cigarette usage among high school and middle school-aged children in just the last two years, prompting the U.S. Surgeon General to officially recognize the trend as an epidemic and urge action against it.

These facts have elicited others to take action, as well.

Truth Initiative, the nonprofit best known for dropping the real facts about smoking and vaping since 2000 through its truth campaign, is now on a mission to confront e-cigarette brands like JUUL about the lack of care they've taken to inform consumers of the potential adverse side effects of their products. And they're doing it with the help of animal protesters who are tired of seeing humans treated like test subjects.

The March Against JUUL | Tested On Humans | truth www.youtube.com

"No one knows the long-term effects of JUULing so any human who uses one is being used as a lab rat," says, appropriately, Mario the Sewer Rat.

"I will never stop fighting JUUL. Or the mailman," notes Doug the Pug, the Instagram-famous dog star.

Truth, the national counter-marketing campaign for youth smoking prevention, hopes this fuzzy, squeaky, snorty animal movement arms humans with the facts about vaping and inspires them to demand transparency from JUUL and other e-cigarette companies. You can get your own fur babies involved too by sharing photos of them wearing protest gear with the hashtag #DontTestOnHumans. Here's some adorable inspo for you:

The dangerous stuff is already out there, but with knowledge on their side, young people will hopefully make the right choices and fight companies making the wrong ones. If you need more convincing, here are the serious facts.

Over the last decade, 127 e-cigarette-related seizures were reported, which prompted the FDA to launch an official investigation in April 2019. Since then, over 215 cases of a new, severe lung illness have sprung up all over the country, with six deaths to date. While scientists aren't yet sure of the root cause, the majority of victims were young adults who regularly vaped and used e-cigarettes. As such, the CDC has launched an official investigation into the potential link.

Sixteen-year-old Luka Kinard, a former frequent e-cigarette-user, is one of the many teens who experienced severe side effects. "Vaping was my biggest addiction," he told NowThis. "It lasted for about 15 months of my high school career." In 2018, Kinard was hospitalized after having a seizure. He also had severe nausea, chest pains, and difficulty breathing.

After the harrowing experience, he quit vaping, and began speaking out about his experience to help inform others and hopefully inspire them to quit and/or take action. "It shouldn't take having a seizure as a result of nicotine addiction like I had for teens to realize that these companies are taking advantage of what we don't know," Kinard said.

Teens are 16 times more likely to use e-cigarettes than adults, and four times more likely to take up traditional smoking as a result, according to truth, and yet the e-cigarette market remains virtually unregulated and untested. In fact, companies like JUUL continue to block and prevent FDA regulations, investing more than $1 million in lawyers and lobbying efforts in the last quarter alone.

Photo by Lindsay Fox/Pixabay

Consumers have a right to know what they're putting in their bodies. If everyone (and their pets) speaks up, the e-cigarette industry will have to make a change. Young people are already taking action across the country. They're hosting rallies nationwide and on October 9 as part of a National Day of Action, young people are urging their friends and classmates to "Ditch JUUL." Will you join them?

For help with quitting e-cigarettes, visit thetruth.com/quit or text DITCHJUUL to 88709 for free, anonymous resources.

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