Angelina Jolie Celebrates 45th B-Day Giving $200,000 to NAACP Legal Defense Fund
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Above: Angelina Jolie at 2019 San Diego Comic Con International, for "The Eternals", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.via Gage Skidmore. Bottom: Newly-released NAACP #WeAreDoneDying campaign.
Activist, Oscar winner, supermom Angelina Jolie celebrated her 45th birthday on June 4, the day after donating $200,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense fund. Jolie was joined by her six kids: Maddox, 18, Pax, 16, Zahara, 15, Shiloh, 14, and 11-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
“Rights don’t belong to any one group to give to another. Discrimination and impunity cannot be tolerated, explained or justified. I hope we can come together as Americans to address the deep structural wrongs in our society,“ Jolie said in a press statement about her contribution. “I stand with the NAACP Fund in their fight for racial equality, social justice and their call for urgent legislative reform.”
Angelina Jolie Also Taking On Food Security for Kids in America
The activist and philanthropist is increasingly concerned about the lack of food security in America. She recently joined a Zoom call led by No Kid Hungry, devoted to feeding kids in America impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, writes People magazine.
Long known for her work as a UNHCR special envoy, Angelina Jolie now understands the scope of hunger in America.
“I knew that there were problems in America, that there was poverty, but I could not believe when I realized how many school children in America were dependent on a meal to not go hungry," she said on the call. "I was so disgusted that we have gotten to this point as a country and that we would let the most vulnerable be in such a state. I can’t imagine what it feels like for those parents.”
Appalled over cuts to America’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Jolie donated $1 million to No Kid Hungry, and wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about cutbacks on food subsidies.
"While strengthening SNAP will not alleviate all of the challenges low-income families are facing during the public health emergency, it will help ensure that fewer children go to bed hungry in our country," she said
USA Today reported the letter, in which Jolie reminded America’s political leaders that vulnerable children in America have missed nearly 740 million meals at school, due to coronavirus closings. Jolie also gave specific examples of how food assistance policy used to work in America, prior to the Trump Administration. Republicans have sought to cut aid to hungry families for years, but the Trump Administration has been uniquely aggressive in the cuts — with a special focus on “able-bodied adults ages 18 to 49 — without dependents”. The administration insists that children’s needs have suffered with SNAP cuts.
