I feel like this is one of those stories that’s supposed to be heartwarming but is also an indictment of our society. Taylor Swift is apparently donating some of the proceeds of her Eras tour to food banks in the cities where she’s toured, including in Las Vegas and Seattle. One food bank, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, received a giant donation from Taylor that will help them feed half a million people this month, which is fantastic. The Eras tour is expected to net Taylor about $500 million according to some estimates. Taylor hasn’t made the donation amounts public, which is classy, but I’m estimating they were at least five to six figures.
It’s no “Cruel Summer” for food banks in areas where Taylor Swift is having concerts. In addition to playing sold-out-stadiums, the singer has put money from her hefty ticket prices towards making large donations to local food pantries and banks across the country.
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, a food bank primarily serving San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, received a huge donation from Swift on July 28, chief philanthropy officer Shobana Gubbi told Insider.
Gubbi said the day they received the donation was the “best” and added that employees at Second Harvest were “so excited.”
“We are so grateful to Taylor for using her platform for good and for supporting food banks across the country during her Eras tour,” Gubbi said in an email to Insider. “Here in Silicon Valley, where the level of need has risen again to peak pandemic levels, her generous donation will assist in our ongoing efforts to provide nutritious food.”
With an estimated net worth of over $740 million, the Eras tour could make Swift a billionaire. Forbes previously estimated that the tour could make Swift about $500 million to keep for herself.
Gubbi said she could not provide the exact amount of money Swift donated. Still, he said the funds are unrestricted, meaning the donation can be used for anything Second Harvest decides — and according to Gubbi, 95 cents out of every $1 donated goes directly back into providing their services.
Pre-pandemic, Gubbi said, Second Harvest served about 250,000 per month. Now, she said they serve about 500,000 a month, and nearly one out of six people in Silicon Valley need food assistance.
She also gave $100k bonuses to the truck drivers, dancers, and crew who were working on her tour which is great. Taxes on bonuses are typically pretty high but that’s still a life-changing sum of money for regular people. Taylor has a long history of making generous donations to charities and individuals, and it’s something about her that I respect. It’s also smart image management which I’m certain is one reason why she does it–Taylor cares a lot about how she is perceived. Obviously it’s really cool that Taylor is donating so much money to these food banks, but it’s also kind of crazy that this tour is going to probably make her a billionaire. The fact that she can make so much money from one tour with hugely inflated ticket prices while more and more people are suffering from hunger…the disparity of that is uniquely American and not in a good way. Silicon Valley is also affected by hunger so severely because of its astonishing housing costs. It was that way when I lived there five years ago and was a teacher–in one of the wealthiest zip codes in the entire country, you’d also have schools where 90% of kids were eligible for something called “second chance” breakfasts because food insecurity was so pervasive. A lot of kids didn’t get breakfast at home so the school provided it. Clearly it’s only gotten worse in Silicon Valley, and in communities across this country. Taylor does a lot more than many other almost-billionaires, I’ll give her that. But dang, this story just shows how unequal things are in America.
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