Single Mom Tanai Benard: Helping Hurricane Harvey victims

Like a Mother

Tanai Bernard was famous for her blog Four Deep Around the World, in which she chronicled living in the Middle East with her three kids, teaching school, and traveling the globe. Today she is stateside, teaching and raising her kids in Houston. When Hurricane Harvey struck, she and her family took refuge at her mother's Dallas home. But news of devestation in her hometown of Beaumont, Texas brought back memories of her own loss during Hurricane Rita in 2005. "To watch people you knew (on TV) being evacuated by helicopter put a fire in me," she said in this Like a Mother episode. "I didn't even know what was going on with my own home. I just knew I had to help these people."

Pulling on her Facebook community, Tanai put out a call to action, and within 16 hours, friends and strangers from around the globe had made donations through Walmart's 'Ship-to-Store' feature. Tanai loaded up a rented cargo van and drove through scary flood waters and barricaded roads the blankets, diapers and bottled water to a church in Beaumont. That run inspired more donations, and eventually Tanai rented and hauled a half-dozen 26-foot trucks and an 18-wheeler to Harvey victims in Houston. Today, she continues her work, posting requests and updates on Facebook, focusing on supporting displaced families and getting kids back to school — all while working fulltime and taking care of her own three kids, whom, thankfully, have a safe and dry house.

In this episode Tanai and I discuss:

• Why moving across the globe in the middle of her divorce was the best thing for her and her kids.
• Her favorite moment when traveling internationally.
• What it was like to date in a Middle Eastern country.
• What she thought and felt when she delivered supplies to stranded Harvey families.
• The magic that transpired to support her efforts
• What keeps her motivated to keep supporting and serving Harvey families.
• How her global travel prepared Tanai for the service she does now