On Tuesday afternoon the New York City Housing Authority tweeted out praise to the Shawn Carter Foundation, as well as Jack Dorsey's Start Small Foundation, after using "a generous donation" from those charities to purchase supermarket gift cards for residents in the Marcy, Sumner, and Tompkins housing projects.
For background (since it's a pretty brief tweet) in April, Dorsey, Jay-Z, and Rihanna teamed up for a coronavirus relief fund. As per a press release from April 15, it was revealed that $6.2 million from the initiative would be directed towards "protecting and serving marginalized populations," throughout the U.S., but with a special focus on New Orleans, Puerto Rico, and New York.
As we wrote of the goal at the time:
Domestically, the fund will provide grants to Give Directly to help support low income families impacted by the pandemic, the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City to support domestic violence victims, and the Covenant House New Orleans to provide shelter and other essential goods to the homeless. Other initiatives supported by the fund include the Second Harvest Food bank of Greater New Orleans & Acadiana, Total Community Action, and the Hispanic Federation.
The joint grants will also go towards initiatives internationally, including Doctors Without Borders, the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, Direct Relief, and Team Humanity.
Prior to that, Rihanna's Clara Lionel Foundation had given $5 million to coronavirus relief groups. There was also an additional $1 million check from her given in support of "undocumented workers, the children of frontline health workers and first responders, and incarcerated, elderly and homeless populations in New York City and Los Angeles."
By whichever standard you hold (at least, I think?) Dorsey also gave a lot to charity in the same month:
