Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.
I ran a Google search eariler on < “laura silsby” -haiti, -haitian > , in other words to pick up only hits from before this gig. I couldn’t find a peep about ANY prior charitable activity except for another “non-profit” under her complete control, operating through her company “Personal Shopper”, with a hard to trace method of collecting money. And that didn’t even claim to involve any hands on work by herself or anyone affiliated with the organization. In other words, there’s no evidence she’s ever done ANY hands-on charitable work before, but now she’s suddenly starting big with buying/building her own orphanage, leading a team of volunteers to an earthquake-ravaged country to round up and “save” a busload of “orphans”, etc.
http://emagazine.ewomennetwork.com/060522_Summer/article-femtor_winners.cfm
Scroll about 2/3rds of the way down the page to “Laura Silsby – “Businesswoman
of the Year”
Running a Google search on the name of that organization, “Kids Changing Lives with the Gift of a Smile”, brings up a grand total of 11 hits, every single one of which is about collecting money and appears to have been generated by her own PR activities. Not a peep from any organization mentioning being a recipient of money from the organization, though some of the hits include a claim that the organization forwards donations to the legitimate charity “Operation Smile” (though that organization has been accused of some financial irregularities). But there is no mention of her organization, or of Personal Shopper, or of Laura Silsby on Operation Smile’s website, suggesting that it never received any significant amount of money from her organization (and quite possibly received none at all).
Scammer, scammer, scammer. May she rot in a Haitian jail for a long, long time.