The foundation of Greenwich billionaire Ray Dalio and his wife Barbara, Dalio Philanthropies, announced Friday a pledge of $4 million to support medical care and food for those who are most stressed and cannot afford it as a result of COVID-19.
They announced $3 million will be directed toward the sponsorship of childcare services at 26 centers across Connecticut for hospital workers, administered by the Capitol Region Education Council in close coordination with Commissioner Beth Bye and the Office of Early Childhood.
Also, $1 million of the donation will go toward food and nutrition for Connecticut residents in need, through two longstanding community organizations: Foodshare and the Connecticut Food Bank.
Foodshare will receive $500,000 to purchase 14 trailers of food that will be distributed across 64 sites statewide feeding an estimated 35,000 people for 10 weeks.
The remaining $500,000 will be provided to the Connecticut Food Bank to distribute statewide. Connecticut Food Bank’s network of more than 300 member agencies – food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, residential programs, senior and veteran centers, day programs for low-income adults and children – serves more than 118,000 individuals per month across the six-county service area
“Ray and I are deeply concerned about these front-line hospital workers, and the additional burdens they’re bearing as a result of this pandemic,” said Barbara Dalio in a release on Friday. “We want to do what we can to make sure they get the childcare services they need so they can provide medical care for others. We are starting with frontline hospital workers whose children are all of a sudden home every day and who don’t have childcare. To us, they are heroes. The least we can do is make sure their children are taken care of while they’re on the front lines providing medical care.”
“We have been told that these organizations expect an increase of at least 20% in terms of the number of people who will need help obtaining food for their families,” she continued. “These are terrific organizations that have spent years helping families by providing them with nutritional meals. We are grateful to have the opportunity to help them since they provide so much help to others.”