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Rihanna’s Foundation donates $5 million to help COVID-19 relief efforts

by

ABC/Lou Rocco

Rihanna joins the list of celebs pulling their resources together during this critical time to help COVID-19 relief efforts. Her non-profit Clara Lionel Foundation has donated $5 million to help the cause. 

Their foundation says their goal is to “mobilize a broad response working with on-the-ground partners,” such as Feeding America, Direct Relief, Partners in Health, The World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, the International Rescue Committee, and others. 

“When we first began this year, never could we have imagined how COVID-19 would so dramatically alter our lives,” reads a statement on the foundation’s website. “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from, this pandemic will affect us all. And for the world’s most vulnerable, the worst may be yet to come.”

The allocated funds will support local food banks serving at-risk communities and the elderly, respiratory supply distribution, and help to establish and maintain intensive care units. Native communities will be provided with resources to fight the virus, and healthcare workers will be provided with training and protective equipment.

The donation will also help accelerate testing and care in Haiti and Malawi and accelerate the development of vaccines and other therapies across the globe. 

Named after her grandparents, Rihanna started the Clara Lionel Foundation in 2012 helping to fund education and emergency response programs around the world.   “Protecting our frontline health workers and marginalized communities around the world requires getting ahead of it FAST,” the foundation’s statement says.  “The time to act is now.”

In related news, Ciara and Russell Wilson, Kodak Black and Stephen & Ayesha Curry have all donated funds, food or books to local schools and food banks in their hometowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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