A star-studded benefit concert featuring everyone from Billie Eilish to Lady Gaga raised about $100 million for victims of the LA wildfires in January — but struggling locals say they have yet to see a dime from it eight months later.
The massive, much-ballyhooed FireAid event — which drew heavy-hitter supporters such as former Veep Kamala Harris and her hubby, Doug Emhoff — has doled out the dough to 197 charities, many of which are focused on a variety of niche, woke and DEI causes not directly related to helping fire victims.
One charity is focused on buying uniforms for kiddie choir singers ($100,000) and another offers pet health care ($250,000).
Organizers — who have been accused of being tone-deaf — said in their defense that they never claimed FireAid Inc. funds would go directly to helping victims.
An audit released Monday by the Annenberg Foundation, which is managing the funds, showed how the money so far has been spent — and the causes that are being funded are all over the map.
The beneficiaries ranged from the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation ($100,000) to a group making podcasts about the wildfires ($100,000), to the local YMCA ($250,000).
Several grants went to nonprofits that focus on political advocacy for minority groups, including the NAACP Pasadena ($100,000), the Los Angeles Black Worker Center ($250,000), My Tribe Rise ($200,000), and the CA Native Vote Project ($100,000), which conducts voter registration drives for Native Americans across the state.
