Taylor Swift is working to leave the cities on her Eras Tour route a little better than she found them.
As the 34-year-old pop star has taken her global trek to Europe this summer, she’s continued her trend of donating to food banks along the way. And according to one charity in Liverpool — where Swift performed three nights at Anfield Stadium earlier this month — a recent contribution from the singer will take care of crucial gaps in their fundraising efforts, providing for a full year’s worth of meals.
“It’s the most incredible gift,” Rich Jones, chief executive of St. Andrew’s Community Network, told The Guardian in an interview published Tuesday (June 25). “Because of rising prices, rising need and falling donations, we’ve been having to subsidize our food ourselves for a long while.”
“But it’s fair to say that Taylor Swift has essentially paid our food bill for 12 months – and that gives us the breathing space to focus on fundraising efforts going forward,” he added on behalf of St. Andrew’s, which runs 11 food banks and offers long-term support to eight community pantries.
Shortly after performing in Liverpool, the “Anti-Hero” singer brought her Eras showcase to Wales. According to Rachel Biggs, chief executive of Cardiff Foodbank, Swift also covered 10,800 meals with a discreet donation to the organization in honor of her single performance at Principality Stadium June 18.
“We’re going to buy an articulated lorry full of food and other most-needed items to supplement our emergency food parcels,” Biggs told the publication. “This will provide the weight equivalent to feeding 1,200 people three meals a day, for three days … This will be 2.5 weeks of what we typically distribute.”
Though Swift doesn’t publicize her donations, Liverpool and Cardiff are only two of the latest cities to report receiving generous donations from the 14-time Grammy winner over the course of her Eras Tour. When she was on the North American leg, food banks in Arizona, Nevada and Florida all revealed that she had sent funding their way.
Following three nights at London’s Wembley Stadium last weekend, Swift is next slated to perform three shows in Dublin June 28-30. She’ll spend the rest of the summer traveling throughout Europe before returning to North America for a final lap this fall.
“Wembley Stadium round one was so surreal,” she wrote in a recent Instagram post. “Looking out into crowds of 90,000 fans each night and hearing that VOLUME… Those were some of the loudest crowds I’ve ever heard … Never going to forget these shows.”
flynnwebdev on June 29th, 2024 at 06:52 UTC »
There's a lot of comments here that make good points about how it's a drop in the ocean for her, billionaires bad, rich people shouldn't have to do this since society should be supporting the less fortunate, etc...
While all valid points, the bottom line is that there are people in the UK who will get to eat for the next year who otherwise may have starved. Unless you have zero empathy, this is a net good.
Amaxophobe on June 29th, 2024 at 00:28 UTC »
For an “uplifting” news subreddit, the comments are pretty downer.
kibbeeeee on June 28th, 2024 at 23:44 UTC »
She donates to food banks in every city she tours in. This isn’t the first one to say they’re covered for a year plus because of her donations. It’s a pretty cool thing she does.