Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson ‘The Rock’ create a fund for Hawaiians and contribute 10 million dollars

The island of Maui has burned like never before in its history, destroying trees, houses and lives. Hawaii watches in despair as its historical and cultural heritage, centered on the ancient capital of Lahaina, fades and turns to ashes. The flames of the deadliest fire in the United States have claimed a hundred lives and there are still many missing people to find. Something that contrasts especially with what the islands have meant mentally and emotionally for millions of Americans for decades, especially for the wealthiest: a paradise where they can spend rest periods, removed from the madding crowd. That is why many of them turned to those affected from day one, and now Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson, known as The Rock, have materialized that help by creating a fund and contributing an initial 10 million dollars.

This contribution (of, in exchange, 9.2 million euros) is only the beginning of what the presenter and the actor intend to raise through this call People’s Fund of Maui, or Maui People’s Fund, to which they encourage everyone to donate what they can so that it goes directly to the inhabitants of the island. So direct that they promise that anyone who requests it and meets the requirements will be able to receive $1,200 per month (just over 1,100 euros). The forms for the requests are open from this morning.

La Roca, 51, and Winfrey, 69, have communicated the creation of said fund through a joint message on their Instagram accounts, where she has 23 million followers and he has no less than 390, which makes him one of the most followed people on this network in the world. “In recent weeks I have been meeting with people from the community who have suffered from the impact of the fire, asking them what they needed the most and how I could be of help,” said the presenter, actress and producer in the joint statement released for both stars. “The most important thing that has reached my ears is your concern about how to move forward under this immense financial burden.” Hence, they have decided to distribute that money directly.

In addition to their contributions, in just eight hours they have managed to raise more than 400,000 dollars, about 370,000 euros. They claim in their joint video that the idea came to them when, worried, texting each other about how to help, Oprah discovered that singer Dolly Parton had given money “directly to her community,” and they decided to follow suit. “That direct will go to one of the many affected residents, we guarantee it,” she says, while the actor explains that there are many people who have doubts that the monetary contributions will reach their destination. “In disasters like these, the first need is money,” both affirm, and they, well-known faces, want to be guarantors that the shipment is correct.

Both The Rock and Winfrey have strong ties to Hawaii. The actor from the Fast & Furious saga is a lover of the culture of the archipelago and married his girlfriend, Lauren Hashian, with whom he had been dating for 12 years and with whom he has two daughters, Jasmine and Tiana. The actor has had a foundation since 2006 with which he helps terminally ill children and is a great philanthropist: he has helped hospitals, universities, natural disasters, abandoned animals or, more recently, actors on strike. In Hawaii, he had already given large amounts of money to create a gym on a military base and to help with hurricanes. For her part, Winfrey has a house on the island where she spends long periods of time and from the outset she was determined to broadcast many hours of television about the fires, although she was not always well received at the facilities from which she wanted to do her show, where there were people in a vulnerable situation and who had lost everything. The television star has a huge farm on Maui of about 3.5 kilometers in the Kula area, in the center of the island.