Puerto Rican Playboy model Yoli Lara has an inspirational story to tell about her rise to the top. Her community of Toa Baja in Puerto Rico suffered greatly from Hurricane Maria when it struck in 2017. At the time, Yoli was a model living and working in Los Angeles, but she had a plan for how she could have the largest influence in helping her family and people put the pieces back together: she announced to her mother that she was returning and would be running for Miss Puerto Rico in the Miss Universe pageant.

Yoli returned to Puerto Rico in April of that year. The NGO Waves for Water, which was putting in hand-made water filters all across the island, hired her to assist them while she was there. They funded a project she completed for the pageant: since one of the schools in her area lacked access to water, a cooler was erected which could purify water which was contaminated.

Yoli admits that although it would have been a dream come true to win the pageant, it wasn’t meant to be. Her Los Angeles modelling agency subsequuently let her go around the time of the pageant, since she wasn’t present. (Fortunately, they ultimately gave her another shot.) She had nothing when she returned to LA, as she had given everything up to return home. Even though Yoli didn’t win, she felt like a winner for everything she had accomplished—the pageant, the rebuilding, everything—and felt vindicated when Playboy approached her not even two weeks after her return. She went on to be selected as the June 2019 Playmate of the Month.