Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have donated $1 million to a Chicago non-profit dedicated to helping children separated from their families by U.S. immigration authorities, the organization announced Wednesday.
Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights announced the donation a little more than a year after another famous married couple — George and Amal Clooney — donated $100,000 to the group at a time when public fury over family separation policies under the administration of President Donald Trump spiked.
The Young Center is the only organization in the country the U.S. government taps to act as advocates for children being separated at the border from their parents.
The donation by Lively and Reynolds will create the Waymaker Fund for Immigrant Children. It will provide essential financial support to the Young Center’s Child Advocate program and ensure that attorneys, social workers and volunteers defend the rights and best interests of immigrant children who migrate to the United States by themselves or who have been forcibly taken from their parents.
The Young Center is headquartered on the University of Chicago campus and works with the university’s law school — but is independent from the university.
The money will also be used to help fight the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrant children’s rights and advocate for an immigration system that recognizes children’s unique needs, according to a news release issued by the Young Center.
The donation was accompanied by a separate $1 million dollar gift by Lively and Reynolds to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
“We’re blown away by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the Young Center’s commitment to not only justice and democracy, but humanity,” Lively and Reynolds said in the news release.
“Over the last few years, our perspective has grown and we’ve realized we have to do everything possible to foster more compassion and empathy in this world. History’s being written right now. We’re grateful to give back to organizations who give voice to so many.”
