Leonardo DiCaprio, others launch $12M relief food fund

NEWS DESK 

Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio will launch America’s Food Fund, which has already raised $12 million to help communities impacted by the coronavirus.

The organization said Thursday that the funds will be aimed to help low-income families, the elderly, individuals facing job disruptions and children who rely on school lunch programmes.

The food fund will work with hunger relief organizations World Central Kitchen and Feeding America.

DiCaprio serves as a co-founder of America’s Food Fund with philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs.

Apple and the Ford Foundation are also providing money to help lunch the new initiative.

On Thursday, Oprah Winfrey announced a $1 million donation to the fund and $10 million in total to feed the hungry during the crisis.

The new coronavirus has caused a global pandemic that has sickened hundreds of thousands of people and killed more than 53,000 worldwide, crippled economies and forced restrictions on the movement of millions of people in an effort to stop the virus from spreading further and overwhelming health care systems.