PROVIDENCE — Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have donated $26 million to charities this week ahead of their Friday wedding at Madison Square Garden, including a $1 million donation to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.
The donation is part of several donations the couple has made nationwide in places where they have deep ties.
Swift owns and often has spent the Fourth of July at her mansion in the Watch Hill section of Westerly, R.I. The gift to the Providence-based food bank will allow pantries across the state to purchase more food for families in Rhode Island and will support 137 member agencies fighting hunger, the food bank said in a press release Thursday.
“We are incredibly grateful to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce for their extraordinarily generous and unexpected gift,” Melissa Cherney, chief executive of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, said in the press release. ”
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“We are in a time right now where we are just loving the fact that it is harvest and garden season and so we are able to purchase fresh produce, which is some of the most requested food from those that we serve,” Cherney said in an interview Thursday. “We’re also purchasing meat and protein items, milk, and then making sure that kids get fed over the summer as well.”
The food bank serves about 500 meals to children every day during the summer, Cherney said.
Swift and Kelce are currently preparing for their wedding at Madison Square Garden on Friday night, the Associated Press reported. Speculation about the couple’s nuptials has been brewing for months.
Cherney wished the soon-to-be wed couple well and said that Swift has a longstanding relationship with food banks and Feeding America. She said Swift continues to recognize hunger is a serious concern in communities.
The couple’s donations were spread out across 20 local and national charities, according to Swift’s publicist, with many located in areas where the couple has deep ties, the Associated Press reported, including Feeding America and Harvesters, food pantries serving Northeast Kansas and Northwest Missouri.
Other charities included the Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., where Kelce plays tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs.
The food bank said food donations are typically slower in the summer months, increasing the need to purchase food to keep pantries stocked statewide.
“I think that this really challenges the entire community to make sure that people know that hunger exists, that there are needs out there, and they are showing so much generosity and kindness, and challenging others,” Cherney said.
With reports from the Associated Press.
Carlos Muñoz can be reached at carlos.munoz@globe.com. Follow him @ReadCarlos and on Instagram @Carlosbrknews.