Taylor Swift And Travis Kelce Donated $26 Million To 20 Charities Before Their Wedding
In the days leading up to their wedding at Madison Square Garden, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce did something that had nothing to do with the spectacle: they donated $26 million to 20 charities across the United States. A representative for Swift confirmed the figure in a press release on Monday, listing the 20 recipients with zero mention of the wedding. The organizations reflect cities that hold personal meaning for both of them: nine New York nonprofits including City Harvest, the Food Bank for NYC, and Memorial Sloan Kettering's pediatric cancer program; Kansas City's Harvesters and Children's Mercy Hospital; the LA Regional Food Bank; Nashville's The Store; Swift's hometown food bank in Reading, PA; and Kelce's hometown After-School All-Stars in Cleveland. National recipients included Feeding America, the ASPCA, and Grammy in the Schools. City Harvest confirmed receiving $1 million. "This donation is a love letter to New York," said its CEO Jilly Stephens.
But the best moment of the announcement belonged to Dolly Parton. Swift and Kelce donated $2 million to Parton's Imagination Library, the nonprofit that mails free books to children from birth through age five across the US and six other countries. Parton responded on Instagram with a video: "Taylor and Travis, it's Dolly. I was just told you two are making a donation of $2 million to my Imagination Library. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm blown away and overjoyed." Then she added: "Now, when you have your firstborn, can I have it? Because that is gonna be one special baby." It is, by any measure, exactly the kind of note you want to start a marriage on.
