USING OUR ENERGY
FOR CHANGE.
From building homes in Bali to earthquake relief in Lombok Indonesia — EXC International turns generosity into real, lasting change.
Right now, our community needs us in Puerto Rico.
Our Impact
25k+
Community Raise
8+
Global Activations
4
Countries Reached
10k
Ocean Conservation
Active Emergency:
Puerto Rico Has Been Without Water.
This Is Not New.
While the headlines are focused on tourists in San Juan going without water, the truth is this has been the daily reality for communities across the entire island for years. Between 2023 and nearly 2025, our neighborhoods only had running water from 2 PM to 7 PM — if we were lucky. In the past week alone, we've had no water at all.
We are on the ground here. We have the means to get in a car, find what we need, or take a bath in the ocean if we have to. But for the majority of people on this island — many of them elderly, many of them with no transportation, no resources, and no backup plan — the tap running dry isn't an inconvenience… it's a crisis with nowhere to turn.
Puerto Rico has one of the most aged populations in the United States. When water is cut for days at a time, these are the people left behind. We've been buying water for our neighbors. We've been checking on people. But there is only so much any one household can do — and this is bigger than any individual effort.
The infrastructure has been failing for decades. A 54-inch pipe broke at the Sergio Cuevas water plant, leaving over 183,000 people without service. The National Guard has been deployed. Tanker trucks are running 30 times a day just to supply the airport. And still — people don't have water.
EXC International is raising emergency funds to purchase water, supplies, and resources for the elderly and underserved families across the island who have no other support. We need to do this together.
"This is inhuman… It's destroying the emotional state of a people."
— Luz Laborde, community leader, Santurce
183K+
People left without water after a critical pipe failure at the Sergio Cuevas water plant in Trujillo Alto.
5 HOURS
The window our community alone had water access — 2 PM to 7 PM — for nearly two years straight. Some days, nothing at all.
7+ DAYS
How long we have personally gone without water just this year alone. Our neighbors - many elderly - face the same.
70%
Of Puerto Rico is served by water that has violated federal health standards, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Puerto Rico doesn't lack water.
It lacks a system to deliver it.
50–80+ years old — the age of most pipes, pumps, and treatment systems across the island. Some date back to the 1950s.
26 years old — the Superaqueduct, opened around 2000, considered the "new" infrastructure.
Over half of all treated water is lost through leaks before it ever reaches a home.
Hurricane Maria (2017) accelerated decades of already-deferred damage — and the system never fully recovered.
Water depends on electricity. When the power goes out — which it does, often — so does the water.
Money is simply energy to help us on our journey.
We don't measure success by what we can buy — but by the number of people we can bless. We believe in a fun, ambitious way of getting people hooked on helping others. And we believe that every community, everywhere, deserves a real chance at opportunity.
Every Dollar Is
Energy for Change.
Your Donation Goes
Directly to People
Who Need It Most.
Know Where Your Dollar Goes.
Activation updates, community stories, and new ways to give — no spam, just impact.
A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDERS
I've been doing mission work since I was a teenager. Long before Paris Fashion Week, before co-founding Mane Addicts, before spending years as a celebrity hairdresser to the Kardashian-Jenners, Kelly Rowland, and many others — I knew that serving people was what I was made for.
I just took the long way around to remembering it.
After traveling the world documenting fashion weeks, working on The Voice Australia, and building a career most people only dream of, I found myself in Bali on what was supposed to be a vacation… but something shifted.
I kept thinking about Honduras — mission trips I took as a kid, where people had almost nothing and yet were the most generous, joyful, loving people I'd ever met. Bali felt the same way. It was a full circle moment. I gave up my entire career and moved to Indonesia.
During the pandemic, I started creating NFT art and selling it to raise funds for local kids and their families who had been left with nothing overnight. That's where I met Daniel. He had been doing the exact same thing on his own — building community and raising money for charity. We looked at each other and thought: what if we made this official?
Daniel is Puerto Rican, and from the moment we came together, the island became a part of our mission. We started with Flor de Loto Montessori in Ponce — supporting early childhood education in an underserved community. The more time we spent on the island, the more we saw the gaps. Puerto Rico is a US territory, yet so many of its people are left without the basic resources that status should guarantee. Clean water. Reliable infrastructure. Opportunity.
Eventually, I uprooted from Indonesia and moved to Puerto Rico. And the moment I arrived, something familiar ignited in me. As a woman of Mexican heritage, and hearing the stories my Tía told of our ancestors, I know what it looks like when a community is overlooked, underserved, and left to figure it out on their own — yet still shows up for each other with everything they have. Puerto Rico is full of that same spirit. It deserves so much better.
That same fire drives everything we do. We have been determined to find real solutions for this island ever since.
That's how EXC International was born. Not from a boardroom. From Bali. From belief. From two people who decided that money is just energy — and energy is meant to move toward the people who need it most.
— Desirae & Daniel, Founders, EXC International