by WorldTribune Staff, September 10, 2025 Real World News
Victims of the Los Angeles area wildfires say they have yet to see a dime of the $100 million raised in a benefit concert in January which featured performances by Lady Gaga and Billie Eilish.
“The massive, much-ballyhooed FireAid event — which drew heavy-hitter supporters such as former Veep Kamala Harris and her hubby, Doug Emhoff — has doled out the dough to 197 charities, many of which are focused on a variety of niche, woke and DEI causes not directly related to helping fire victims,” the New York Post reported on Wednesday.
“One charity is focused on buying uniforms for kiddie choir singers ($100,000) and another offers pet health care ($250,000).”
The report adds that event organizers never claimed the funds would go directly to helping wildfire victims.
Several grants went to nonprofits that focus on political advocacy for minority groups, including the NAACP Pasadena ($100,000), the Los Angeles Black Worker Center ($250,000), My Tribe Rise ($200,000), and the CA Native Vote Project ($100,000), which conducts voter registration drives for Native Americans across the state.
One group got $500,000 to seed burned forests with restorative fungi and bacteria. Another half-million-dollar grant went to a group that provides mental health care for musicians.
Other beneficiaries ranged from the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation ($100,000) to a group making podcasts about the wildfires ($100,000), to the local YMCA ($250,000).
Missing from the list were the names of people with burned-down houses.
“There are a lot of people in our group chats who are like, ‘What’s the FireAid money being used for?’ Because I don’t think any of us have seen any of it,” said Ben Einbinder, who has become a community organizer since losing his home in the Palisades.
FireAid has revealed which organizations it has given money to, but hasn’t revealed what exactly the organizations are doing with the funds.
“Some of the organizations … it would be hard to say whether they were actually using the FireAid money for wildfire relief,” Einbinder said.
“It’s just a s—tshow, to be quite honest,” said Pacific Palisades resident David Howard, whose house burned down. “And it’s disheartening because people are suffering enough.”
The situation amounts to false advertising at best, Howard said.
“Even the artists performing on stage were telling fans and people engaging with the concert that this money is going directly to the victims,” Howard added. “But the trickle-down on that makes it so the people who need it the most haven’t seen anything.’’
Who benefited? Star-studded concert for L.A. wildfire victims raised $100 million added by Editor Two on
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