Getty Image / Paras Griffin
When wildfires swept through the village of Lahaina last August there were thousands of residents in Maui who lost everything in an instant. Awoken in the middle of the night with fast-moving fires sweeping through the village ravaging everything, some locals were even forced to jump into the ocean in order to escape the flames and over 100 residents were unable to escape the fires and lost their lives.
There was an enormous outpouring of support in the days following the Lahaina wildfires after it took a few days for those efforts to scale up in earnest. Celebrities got involved with the humanitarian efforts. The UFC donated $1 million.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. offered up his private jet to deliver aid to Maui. Pro surfer Kai Lenny was enormously instrumental in organizing aid relief. A-List celebrities Oprah and Dwayne ‘The Rock‘ Johnson also pledged $10 million to those in Maui who were impacted by the fires.
$10 million is a lot of money but there was some pushback as Oprah is worth $2.8 billion and has an extremely expensive estate in Maui. The Rock is also worth nearly a billion dollars himself ($800M) but the voice of ‘Maui’ from Moana delivered the goods, far exceeding the pledge he and Oprah made according to a new report from the Associated Press:
When Winfrey and Johnson launched the People’s Fund for Maui, which benefitted people who lost their homes in the wildfires, they committed $10 million and asked others to join them. At the time, the request was met with some criticism, given especially Winfrey’s wealth and extensive estate in Maui.
In the end, the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a longtime nonprofit that helps celebrities administer charitable work and that managed the distribution of the funds, said it raised almost $60 million. That money was dispersed between September and February to some 8,100 adults — a significant portion of the 12,000 people the state of Hawaii estimates were displaced.
In one example of how the money was spent, the AP spoke with Lana Vierra, a mother of five and grandmother of four who lost her home in an instant. Everyone in her family except for one adult son received six monthly payments of $1,200 from Oprah and The Rock’s fundraising efforts.
For people who weren’t personally impacted by the Maui wildfires it’s easy to move on from a story like that. The news coverage tapered off in the weeks following the August fires. But it is important to give credit where credit is due. The Rock and Oprah stepped up in a major way and were able to get money to those in Maui at a time when they desperately needed it for basic living requirements like food and shelter.