Gareth Cattermole/TAS24/Getty Images, courtesy TAS Rights Management
Taylor Swift tries to leave each city on her Eraser Tour route in a slightly better state than when she arrived.
The 34-year-old pop star is on a world tour in Europe this summer, but has continued her habit of donating to food banks along the way. And the Liverpool charity, where Swift performed three nights at Anfield Stadium earlier this month, says the singer's latest donation will fill a vital gap in their fundraising efforts and provide a year's worth of meals.
“This is truly an incredible gift,” Rich Jones, chief executive of St. Andrew's Community Network, told The Guardian in an interview published on Tuesday (June 25). “For a long time, we've had to subsidize our own food supplies due to rising prices, increased demand and falling donations.”
“But it's fair to say that Taylor Swift has essentially paid our food bills for 12 months, freeing us up to focus on future fundraising efforts,” he added, speaking on behalf of St Andrews, which runs 11 food banks and provides long-term support to eight community food pantries.
Shortly after her performance in Liverpool, the “Anti-Hero” singer performed in Wales at an Ellas showcase. Rachel Biggs, chief executive of Cardiff Foodbank, said Swift made a modest donation to the organization to mark her solo show at the Principality Stadium on June 18, providing 10,800 meals.
“We will be purchasing an articulated truckload full of food and other most needed items to supplement our emergency food packs,” Biggs told the paper. “This will be the equivalent weight to feed 1,200 people three meals a day for three days, which is 2.5 weeks of our usual distribution.”
While Swift has not made public her donations, Liverpool and Cardiff are just two of the latest cities to report that the 14-time Grammy winner received large donations during her Hellas tour. Food banks in Arizona, Nevada and Florida all revealed that Swift had donated funds during her North American tour.
After performing three nights at London's Wembley Stadium last weekend, Swift will perform three shows in Dublin from June 28 to 30. She'll spend the rest of the summer traveling around Europe before returning to North America in the fall for her final shows.
“Round 1 at Wembley Stadium was absolutely surreal,” she wrote in a recent Instagram post. “Looking out at 90,000 people every night and hearing the volume…it was the loudest crowd I've ever heard…I'll never forget these shows.”
