Claribel Bocanegra didn’t expect to meet Oprah Winfrey when she booked a flight to New York City on a whim to attend the talk show host’s 2020 Vision tour. An impromptu conversation with a stranger at the show about Claribel’s dream to create a haven for young girls in her Southwest Florida community led a woman sitting nearby to offer Claribel her extra VIP ticket and a chance to chat with the television personality. “I shared the vision of Gemstones [in the Making], and [Oprah] just looked at me, and she’s like, ‘They need you,’” she recalls. That was just the push Claribel needed.
Two years ago, Claribel launched Gemstones in the Making, a nonprofit that gives young women a place to congregate and provides emotional support through wellness camps, yoga sessions and access to mental health services while offering education and career development opportunities. “We need strong women, and we have to start now,” she says. “We have to start young so we’re able to have a strong sense of self, step into our power and use our voices to uphold, to protect and to fight.”
Before launching Gemstones in the Making, the Fort Myers resident had partnered with the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools, since 2013, to create LEAD like a Girl, an annual, one-day symposium that brought two girls from every middle and high school in Lee County together to hear female panelists and learn from one another.
Due to her personal experiences dealing with mental health issues, Claribel knew she could offer more consistent support to young women. A Puerto Rican transplant and mother of four, Claribel was raised by a teenage mom. Her family grew up moving from place to place with little stability. She wanted to create the kind of safe space for young girls that she, her mother and her sister never had.
Claribel also started a fund through Florida Gulf Coast University’s Community Counseling Clinic to help teenage girls afford mental health services. She works with the nonprofit community foundation Collaboratory to host fundraising dinners with friends to provide scholarships for girls who don’t qualify for aid due to their immigration statuses. In Fort Myers, she’s on the board of directors for teen mothers’ shelter Our Mother’s Home, where she hosts circles for girls to journal, create vision boards for their futures, and process emotions. Children are at the heart of Claribel’s giving. After Hurricane Ian, she orchestrated to supply donations—diapers, cleaning supplies, clothing items—to two local Head Start centers, which promote school readiness for children from low-income families.
Next up, Claribel launches a yoga and mindfulness conference for middle school and high school girls, at FGCU, entitled Be Bold, Be Brave, Be You. She’ll continue to serve as long as there is a place to do so, and if there’s not, she’ll make one. “Life is not meant to be done alone,” she says. “We have to be actively engaged in creating the community that we want to live in and want to leave behind for our kids.” —Addison Pezoldt