Christmas came early this year for the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.
The nonprofit received a $1 million donation Thursday from Taylor Swift and her fiance Travis Kelce.
“It was a surprise,” said CEO Melissa Cherney.
Cherney said her staff was surprised and incredibly excited when they heard about the generous gift.
“We have some huge ‘Swifties’ on our team and some of them were hollering,” said Cherney. “It meant so much. They’re such huge fans and now she was giving back to us.”
Cherney says the donation is a tremendous help at this time of year.
“The summer months are usually when we see our food donations decrease,” said Cherney. “People are on vacation. They’re not always thinking about hunger. They usually think about that during the holiday season.”
The donation is one of nearly two-dozen made by Swift and Kelce this week. The gifts include donations to several food banks in New York, Pennsylvania, Kansas City and Los Angeles, as well as several animal-related and educational charities. Fans are expecting the couple to marry this week at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The couple didn’t publicly explain why the Food Bank was on their list, but Swift owns a home in Westerly.
The Food Bank has seen demand climb over the last year, particularly as inflation continues to rise and changes to the federal SNAP program has seen enrollment decline nationwide. In March, Cherney told Ocean State Media that the food bank was serving more than 100,000 people every month.
While the $1 million gift is a major coup for the Food Bank, it’s not the largest donation the nonprofit has received. That honor goes to Cathy and Tom Lawson, who gave $3 million to the Food Bank last fall.
