Money raised by Hollywood for victims of the Los Angeles fires through FireAid went to political groups like the California Native Vote Project — and to a state volunteer corps run by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.
The FireAid concert, on January 30, featured a star-studded lineup in two separate stadiums, and raised some $100 million in public donations, ostensibly to help victims of the Palisades and Eaton Fires.
As Breitbart News reported Sunday, there is a controversy over whether the money is being spent properly. On the one hand, as local ABC affiliate KABC-7 reported, the money is in fact being spent by organizations that received it. On the other, none of the money is going directly to fire victims, but only to nonprofit groups. Fire victims who have benefited from FireAid funds have only done so indirectly, through organizations.
Now, local outlet Circling the News reports, it is clear that some of the groups who have received FireAid funding have only tenuous connections, at best, to the areas affected by the fires — and tangential missions.
One group that has received funding in the California Native Vote Project, a political non-profit that exists to encourage Native Americans to participate in the political process. The FireAid website reports that the cash was intended for “[f]inancial assistance for displaced and affected Native families, expanded healing and mental health services, and distribution of critical health & safety resources.”
According to Census data, there were 16 Native American residents of Pacific Palisades, out of nearly 23,000 people. There were slightly more Native Americans in Altadena, affected by the Eaton Fire: 46 out of about 43,000 residents.
The California Native Vote Project is officially nonpartisan, but its political ideology is radical. It boasts of its success in removing statues of Christopher Columbus, and it opposes the enforcement of federal immigration law, standing with the “undocumented” population against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Another recipient is a group called CalVolunteers — which, Circling the News points out, is a state-run organization. The group is actually run out of the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), and is supposed to be funded by taxpayers.
The FireAid website says that CalVolunteers received funding for “[s]upporting the training and stipends for volunteers working on benefit navigation services and wildfire remediation.” It is not clear why that money came from donors and not from the State of California itself.
Some groups are worthy causes. One, the Change Reaction, has used its own funds to provide financial relief directly to households.
Other groups seem less worthy. Instituto de Educatcion Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA), for example, received a grant to support “displaced workers impacted by the fires,” but its mission is “to organize and educate immigrants concerned with solving problems in their own communities.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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