MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has donated more than $4 billion in the past four months to hundreds of organizations and charities—in particular to food banks and emergency relief funds across the USA. Scott signed the Giving Pledge—an initiative sparked by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett a decade ago—and promised to give away her billions “until the safe is empty.”
This July, she began making good on her promise and has already donated $1.7 billion of her $60 billion fortune to 116 charities. Just 5 months later, the 50-year-old announced that she’d given even more money away. Since summer, the world’s third-wealthiest woman has donated more than $4.15 billion to 384 organizations in Puerto Rico and the States—taking her 2020 donations so far to $6 billion.
In a blog post that begins with an Emily Dickinson poem, Scott–a lauded novelist as well as a philanthropist—writes, “This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling. Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, for people of color, and for people living in poverty. Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires.”
Scott said she has been working with a team of advisors to help her accelerate her giving to organizations that need immediate support in the face of the COVID crisis. Using a “data-driven approach” to identifying organizations with strong leadership teams, and paying “special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital,” recipients of Scott’s funding include the YMCA, Meals on Wheels, the Global Fund for Women, civil rights organization the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs, many dozens of food banks, Goodwill, and various centers of education such as Blackfoot Community College.
In the latest round of giving, Scott donated $40 million to Morgan State University, an HBCU in Baltimore. The gift is the largest single private donation in the university’s history, and roughly doubles the school’s endowment. Scott also gave $50 million to Prairie View A&M University in Texas — the school’s largest donation ever, and nearly doubling its endowment, according to the university.
According to news outlets, these donations “might be among the most ever handed out directly to charities in a single year by a living donor.” Scott is not the only billionaire who’s been giving in 2020. While Jeff Bezos has not signed the Giving Pledge, he has distributed $791 million in grant money to large environmental organizations through the Bezos Earth Fund.
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Christine Danderand knows how hard nurses like her mother have been working during the coronavirus pandemic and wanted to do something to let them know how much their sacrifices are appreciated. Danderand, an Omaha, Nebraska, makeup artist, set up a Facebook group last month inviting people to adopt the nurses and health care workers at her mom’s hospital. She only expected her friends to see the group it has grown to more than 12,000 members in just over three weeks and hundreds of health care workers have been adopted.
To participate, nurses and other health care workers can post some information about themselves and a link to their Amazon wish lists. Adopters got busy sending box after box of holiday cheer along with heartfelt messages of thanks and encouragement. The gifts have come from grateful members of the public, doctors, who adopt entire hospital units, and even other nurses. “If you read a lot of the Amazon links, they want compression socks, or a new pair of shoes, or a coffee mug, candy,” she said. “Just little things that kind of brighten their spirits when they get home from work at the end of the day.”
She says she has been spending about four hours a day running the group and has recruited three of her friends to help. Danderand had only planned to run the group for a few weeks, but says it doesn’t feel right to stop now since it’s grown so much. She said she’s heard from a lot of people who’ve made new friends through the group. It’s not just a gifting page anymore, it’s something where they’ve got support from their peers,” she said.
One of her new volunteers is a hospice nurse and was one of the first people adopted by the group. Kris Epps-Martinez said she’s been adopting other nurses to pay it forward. “I deal with death all the time,” Epps-Martinez said. “These other nurses aren’t used to this. It’s hard on them. They deal with death, but not like this.” Epps-Martinez added “It’s simple to do and any health care worker can post and get adopted. We’ve been having them create a wish list on Amazon so that way they get what they want.”
Nurses from states all across the country are now posting and getting adopted. Danderand says it has been uplifting to see the generosity. There are currently about 200 workers waiting to get something from their wish list. Now, there’s a need for people to adopt. You can buy as much or as little as you want. Danderand said anything will mean a lot. “If I could say anything to all the nurses out there I would say thank you,'” Danderand said. Similar groups have been springing up across the country. If you want to join the movement, check your social media for local adopt-a-nurse initiatives—or start an adopt-a-frontline-worker group of your own.
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A young leukemia survivor spread holiday cheer to kids battling cancer by delivering toys throughout the D.C. area. Six-year-old Summer Grace Cernoch and her family drove around the region with the gifts. Summer Grace battled leukemia for two years, spending holidays in the hospital, had several surgeries and countless painful treatments. She finished her last treatment in February.
Two Christmases, 79 port chemos, 10 blood transfusions, and a countless number of pills later, Summer Grace beat cancer. Per her request, the night she took her last chemotherapy pill the Cernoch family set off fireworks in celebration. The fireworks, however, were just the beginning of their celebration of Summer Grace’s hard-fought battle – in September they started the Summer Grace Foundation in her honor.
December 21st marked three years since she was diagnosed. “I’ve dreaded this day every year as it … just brings back a lot of bad memories for our family,” said Summer Grace’s mother, Jessica Cernoch. The Cernoch family started the foundation to help kids like her and many of the toys delivered Monday were donated by the community.
The foundation’s mission is to raise awareness, raise funds for pediatric cancer research in hopes of finding better and less toxic treatments, and support the childhood cancer community. 1 in 5 kids diagnosed with cancer will not survive. On average, 43 kids are diagnosed with cancer every day, and 7 kids die every day due to cancer or because of the effects of their harsh treatments. “We remember very vividly how awful this journey is, and so we want to do everything we can to give back and support the childhood cancer community,” her mother said.
The world changes in an instant, and things are never quite the same ever again after a cancer diagnosis. Childhood cancer effects every aspect of family life. In addition to the physical aspect of cancer, there’s often a huge financial burden, and an indescribable level of worry and stress. Life becomes physically and emotionally draining, and there’s often little energy left to focus on anything or anyone other than the child. Marriages may become strained and siblings may be left feeling disconnected from the family.
Every year, the foundation also partners with various businesses to offer relaxing, overnight retreats. Donations to the foundation can sponsor a retreat for families battling cancer. Summer Grace and her family also plan to start a music scholarship program for cancer patients.
You can support the Summer Grace Foundation through AmazonSmile. At no cost to you, you can find the same selection of products and low prices! Upon checkout, Amazon will donate a portion of your purchase price to us. Simply go to smile.amazon.com, sign in, and choose the Summer Grace Foundation as your charity. Amazon will donate .05% of all eligible purchases.
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A young leukemia survivor spread holiday cheer to kids battling cancer by delivering toys throughout the D.C. area. Six-year-old Summer Grace Cernoch and her family drove around the region with the gifts. Summer Grace battled leukemia for two years, spending holidays in the hospital, had several surgeries and countless painful treatments. She finished her last treatment in February.
Two Christmases, 79 port chemos, 10 blood transfusions, and a countless number of pills later, Summer Grace beat cancer. Per her request, the night she took her last chemotherapy pill the Cernoch family set off fireworks in celebration. The fireworks, however, were just the beginning of their celebration of Summer Grace’s hard-fought battle – in September they started the Summer Grace Foundation in her honor.
December 21st marked three years since she was diagnosed. “I’ve dreaded this day every year as it … just brings back a lot of bad memories for our family,” said Summer Grace’s mother, Jessica Cernoch. The Cernoch family started the foundation to help kids like her and many of the toys delivered Monday were donated by the community.
The foundation’s mission is to raise awareness, raise funds for pediatric cancer research in hopes of finding better and less toxic treatments, and support the childhood cancer community. 1 in 5 kids diagnosed with cancer will not survive. On average, 43 kids are diagnosed with cancer every day, and 7 kids die every day due to cancer or because of the effects of their harsh treatments. “We remember very vividly how awful this journey is, and so we want to do everything we can to give back and support the childhood cancer community,” her mother said.
The world changes in an instant, and things are never quite the same ever again after a cancer diagnosis. Childhood cancer effects every aspect of family life. In addition to the physical aspect of cancer, there’s often a huge financial burden, and an indescribable level of worry and stress. Life becomes physically and emotionally draining, and there’s often little energy left to focus on anything or anyone other than the child. Marriages may become strained and siblings may be left feeling disconnected from the family.
Every year, the foundation also partners with various businesses to offer relaxing, overnight retreats. Donations to the foundation can sponsor a retreat for families battling cancer. Summer Grace and her family also plan to start a music scholarship program for cancer patients.
You can support the Summer Grace Foundation through AmazonSmile. At no cost to you, you can find the same selection of products and low prices! Upon checkout, Amazon will donate a portion of your purchase price to us. Simply go to smile.amazon.com, sign in, and choose the Summer Grace Foundation as your charity. Amazon will donate .05% of all eligible purchases.
Read more
MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has donated more than $4 billion in the past four months to hundreds of organizations and charities—in particular to food banks and emergency relief funds across the USA. Scott signed the Giving Pledge—an initiative sparked by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett a decade ago—and promised to give away her billions “until the safe is empty.”
This July, she began making good on her promise and has already donated $1.7 billion of her $60 billion fortune to 116 charities. Just 5 months later, the 50-year-old announced that she’d given even more money away. Since summer, the world’s third-wealthiest woman has donated more than $4.15 billion to 384 organizations in Puerto Rico and the States—taking her 2020 donations so far to $6 billion.
In a blog post that begins with an Emily Dickinson poem, Scott–a lauded novelist as well as a philanthropist—writes, “This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling. Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, for people of color, and for people living in poverty. Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires.”
Scott said she has been working with a team of advisors to help her accelerate her giving to organizations that need immediate support in the face of the COVID crisis. Using a “data-driven approach” to identifying organizations with strong leadership teams, and paying “special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital,” recipients of Scott’s funding include the YMCA, Meals on Wheels, the Global Fund for Women, civil rights organization the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs, many dozens of food banks, Goodwill, and various centers of education such as Blackfoot Community College.
In the latest round of giving, Scott donated $40 million to Morgan State University, an HBCU in Baltimore. The gift is the largest single private donation in the university’s history, and roughly doubles the school’s endowment. Scott also gave $50 million to Prairie View A&M University in Texas — the school’s largest donation ever, and nearly doubling its endowment, according to the university.
According to news outlets, these donations “might be among the most ever handed out directly to charities in a single year by a living donor.” Scott is not the only billionaire who’s been giving in 2020. While Jeff Bezos has not signed the Giving Pledge, he has distributed $791 million in grant money to large environmental organizations through the Bezos Earth Fund.
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A New York City based painter bought $65,000 worth of art to help struggling artists during the pandemic. Guy Stanely Philoche whose own Abstract canvasses can command in excess of $100,000 each—began the one-man crusade in support of his fellow artists. Philoche knows all too well that earning a living as a fine artist is rarely easy in the best of times.
As pandemic restrictions tightened their hold, closing galleries and shutting down regular shows, for many, it became close to impossible. As the ability to afford the basic necessities slowly diminished, art became a luxury not many could afford. That resulted in hundreds of thousands of artists and independent creators were left without an income stream in the midst of the chaos. One of these artists was Philoche’s own friend, who just had a baby and had lost his job because of the pandemic.
“I told him, ‘Don’t worry, we’re New Yorkers. We’ve been through 9/11, the blackout, the market crash, we’ve got this,'” Philoche said. “But he was scared, so I bought a painting from him to help him get through it. It was such a big deal for him at that moment, and that’s when I realized if he’s panicking like this, other artists are too.”
The realization that so many creative people were struggling was the catalyst that spurred him to do what he could to help. “The art world is my community and I needed to help my community,” Philoche said. “People say New York is dead, but it’s far from that. There’s an artist somewhere writing the next greatest album. There’s a kid right now in his studio painting the next Mona Lisa. There’s probably a dancer right now choreographing the next epic ballet. People forgot about the artists in these industries.”
In March, Philoche posted an Instagram shout-out to artists around the world asking them send images of their work. Philoche, 43, has dedicated himself to seeking out artists from around the world who are unable to make ends meet and has so far purchased more than 150 artworks for up to $500 each. Since then, he’s spent in the neighborhood of $65,000 and purchased over 150 unique works of art from both friends and total strangers. His only criteria is that the art speaks to him.
Philoche and his family immigrated to America from Haiti when he was 3 years old. As the middle child of three boys and coming from a family of sports enthusiasts whose passion he didn’t share, Philoche turned to art as his calling. Like many immigrants, he says he learned to speak English by watching TV. He was also inspired at a young age to make drawings of his favorite Disney characters. From those early efforts, his fascination for the art that would one day become his career was born.
It took Piloche decades to achieve success, however, now that he’s arrived, the 43-year-old feels honor-bound to pay his good fortune forward. “Art saved my life,” he said. “I owe it a debt I could never repay, but the only way to really repay it is by buying other art from someone who hasn’t gotten a big break yet. And that’s what I’m going to keep doing.”
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This time of year, generous donors have anonymously paid off layaways to unsuspecting residents but this year that act of kindness seems far more profound given the uncertainty of the pandemic. But Christmas came early for families across the country who learned that their layaways were completely paid off, a surprise totaling tens of thousands of dollars.
Many families in Tennessee received a Christmas gift they will always remember when donors paid off layaways at multiple locations. A Walmart in Madison TN had $21,000 worth of layaway items paid for by a partnership between Pay Away the Layaway and Cottonelle Brand. The national charity makes it their mission to pay off layaway balances of children’s gifts, clothing and essentials. Lee Karchawer and Ian Bel, founder and co-founder of the organization Pay Away the Layaway, a nonprofit to which people can donate to help pay off layaway accounts at stores around the world. Karchawar started Pay Away the Layaway in 2011 after he read a story about an anonymous man who paid off $25,000 in children’s gifts and toys on layaway.
Another anonymous shopper donated $64,995.51 to pay the balance of items placed on the store’s layaway in Bristol TN. Recipients of this act of kindness received notifications that their items had been paid off, but a manager soon let them know about the magic behind it. In the nearby city of Oxford, an anonymous donor paid off the remaining $25,000 in layaway balances at a different Walmart. It was unclear if the money was donated by the same man. The donor’s primary motive “was to positively affect as many people as possible.” The Christmas cheer spread to other Walmart locations in Tennessee as well. Another location in Oak Ridge, TN had the remaining balances of 114 layaways, totaling around $29,500 paid off. According to the company, the money was provided by a check and layaway orders with toys were given first priority.
Twenty-three families at a Burlington department store in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood were surprised to find that their layaway balances were paid after a donor paid $25,000 worth of items. Servicemen and women from the Naval Station in Norfolk gathered with their families at the local Navy Exchange store to learn which one of them won a raffle to have their holiday layaway plan paid in full. Instead, the 62 families were surprised with the news they would all have their layaway plans paid off, taking home nearly $15,000 worth of items.
A Walmart Supercenter in Henrico County, Virginia had a donor pay off $50,000 in outstanding layaway balances for around 100 people. Walmart shoppers in Charlotte, NC were blessed when a donor paid off. Walmart has not officially announced the total cost of the layaway pay off but customers were told they can pick up their paid for layaway items at the Wal-Mart at 7735 N Tryon St in Charlotte. Another anonymous donor reached out to the Walmart in Hazard, KY through the Pay Away the Layaway organization and paid off the $21,000 layaway balance for 96 families.
Pay Away the Layaway is a registered 501(c)3 non profit organization. Their mission is to inspire hope and help families pay off layaway balances that include gifts for their children, such as games, toys, books, backpacks, clothes and coats. When you make a donation you become a Layaway Angel! Collectively, the foundation crowd funds donations and visit stores across the country to surprise families and make a real difference.
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A Dairy Queen restaurant in Brainerd, Minnesota was the scene of the pay-it-forward chain that lasted nearly three days. According to store manager Tina Jensen the chain stretched over the course of nearly three days, starting on Thursday, Dec. 3, during the store’s lunch rush, and ending on the evening of Saturday, Dec. 5.
The longest chain this drive-through ever experienced was 15 to 20 cars, but in 2020 with the holiday spirit in the air, everyone wanted to keep it going. Jensen, who manages two Dairy Queen locations in Brainerd, said that the event led to about $10,000 in sales with over 900 cars paying it forward. Jensen said she was excited on December 3 when a man said he’d like to pay for the car behind him, so she gave the heart-warming news to the people in that car, and then asked if they wanted to do the same.
“If you like I can pay it forward and you can pay for the order behind you and we can keep this going,” Jensen recalled in an interview with KARE-TV. “She’s like ‘really, why would he do that?’.” That customer agreed to pass on the kind gesture and after that, the next car kept paying for whoever came next. Jensen says, “One lady, she was so excited, she threw us a 20 dollar bill almost in tears. ‘Are you serious? This is really going on?’ I said, yep, you are about 125 cars into it. She said, ‘For real, can you believe this?’”
Before Jensen left for the day, she instructed employees to let her know if anything happened to end the chain. At the end of each shift, Jensen would post an update about the chain on the restaurant’s Facebook page, and the event quickly caught the attention of social media watchers. Jensen said “The community was posting it on different pages, and the word spread,” she explained. “We heard a few different times, ‘Oh, I’ve seen it going on Facebook, I wasn’t sure if it was still going,’ and we’d tell them they were the 300th car or something and that’s where the excitement really came in. People would get very, very excited.”
Jensen said that at least one person called the restaurant and asked to put money on a gift card that could be used in case a car couldn’t pay it forward. “There would be times where people ordered a $5 Blizzard and the car behind them would be a full family getting, you know, a $30 or $40 order,” Jensen said. “To keep a chain going, you’ve got to make sure that somebody is paying it forward, and that’s what we did.” By the time the chain came to an end on Saturday evening, when a customer couldn’t pay for the party behind them and the gift card funds had run out, Jensen said that she and her staff had been excited and energized by the experience.
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Celebrity chef David Chang, founder of the successful Momofuku restaurant brand, is donating his $1 million dollar “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” winnings to the restaurant industry. Like the other celebrity contestants on the show, Chang had been playing for the charity of his choosing, the Southern Smoke Foundation, a Houston-based crisis-relief organization for hospitality industry workers experiencing debt or other hardships.
“I’m so honored that Dave chose Southern Smoke as his charity,” founder Chris Shepherd said. “Now, more than ever, with indoor dining shut down in many parts of the country and temperatures dropping to prohibit outdoor dining, food and beverage industry employees are desperate.” Southern Smoke was established in 2017 and COVID-19’s impact on restaurants, bars, and catering companies in 2020 has made the need for financial crisis intervention all the more urgent. According to their website, the Southern Smoke Foundation has distributed more than $5.7 million, both directly to people in need via the Emergency Relief Fund and to organizations that represent the needs of people in our industry.
Chang has seen first-hand how the spread of covid-19 has cost the hospitality industry hundreds of billions of dollars and put many people out of work. When Chang reached the $500,000 mark, host Jimmy Kimmel cautioned him that no celebrity contestant had ever taken home “the big check.” Chang seriously considered walking away, but trusting his luck, he decided to go all in. “I’m a gambling man and shame on me if this is wrong, but I’m doing this because having a million dollars right now, in this moment, is a game-changer for many, many families.”
Unless you’ve been lucky enough to work from home the entire time, it’s likely your industry has been affected in one way or another by the pandemic. Across the globe people have faced tough decisions on how to navigate a socially distanced life. From teachers creating and maintaining virtual AND in-person curriculums to drivers and delivery people, as well as healthcare professionals on the brink of burnout. Millions who work in the hospitality industry, including food and drink service, have seen unemployment since early into the pandemic in March. Thankfully, many people, like Chang, have found ways to help others through this and inspire others to do the same.
Chang won over several front-line workers in this season of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” which also featured celebrities Tiffany Haddish, Julie Bowen, Ray Romano, Rebel Wilson and Joel McHale. The restaurateur, author and television personality is known for founding the Michelin-star winning Momofuku restaurant group as well as Netflix original series “Ugly Delicious” and “Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.” Southern Smoke Foundation immediately celebrated the win on twitter with the tweet “WE WON A MILLION DOLLARS!!!! #TAKINGCAREOFOUROWN
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Every year, a Secret Santa brings joy to people in need in East Idaho through an anonymous donation and with the help of East Idaho News. The anonymous “secret Santa” has been giving out gifts to people in the East Idaho community for the last five years. This year, more than $500,000 will be given to area families. The news station created a program to nominate people that are in need. They are still seeking nominations for this year and they still have about $150,000 along with several cars left to give away.
It all started in 2015 when Nate Eaton, news director of East Idaho News, received a call from a person wanting to give away $100,000 in gifts to local people in need and the Secret Santa just needed the news site to find the people first. The idea was an immediate hit and their email server almost crashed from the number of nominations they received the first year. The program has grown rapidly since then and people love watching the gifting every year. They now have more than 33,000 followers on their YouTube channel.
Eaton wanted to be sure people know it’s not an organization or business giving the money away but a very generous individual. “Secret Santa looks for people that just need a break,” Eaton said. “They’ve run out of luck, they’ve run out of money, they don’t ask for a handout, they’re working hard, they have specific needs, [and] they just need something to get ahead in life.”
Families across the Eastern Idaho region have been fortunate to be the recipients of gifts from the mysterious and generous “Secret Santa,” who for the past six years has worked in secrecy. Since the “Secret Santa” is anonymous, Eaton has become the face of the entire operation. He’s the one showing up on doorsteps handing out the presents. “It is a local person here. I think if you were to meet him on the street, he might deny it,” said Eaton, who is the only one on his team who knows Santa’s true identity.
This year some gifts will be bigger than ever and will include money towards a prosthetic leg, a pickup truck and a 15-seat passenger van. “The key is you don’t want to have somebody receive a large gift and then [they] have to pay the taxes on it or any fees or things like that,” he explained of how it works. “So Secret Santa covers all of that. If somebody gets a car, the taxes have been paid for. The only thing the person has to pay is the registration and he gives them a check to take care of that.”
Film and production crews will go out to sometimes several places each day during November and December to hand out gifts. Sometimes those situations can be so heartbreaking or personal that East Idaho News elects to not air the footage from giving the gift away.
“The people that maybe you haven’t read about in the news, but have quietly suffered for years and years that don’t think they’ll ever get a break—this might be their year when they can know someone is thinking about them and they can get a gift that will actually change their life,” the news director explained. To nominate someone (you can’t nominate yourself) for the Secret Santa program, you just need to fill out an application on their website.
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