Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson launch fund with $10 million for displaced Maui residents

Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson have committed 10 million to make direct payments to people on Maui who are unable to return to their homes because of the wildfires, through a new fund they announced Thursday.

The People’s Fund of Maui will give 1,200 a month to adults who are not able to return to their primary residences because of the recent wildfires, including people who owned and rented their homes, according to the fund’s website. The fund will also seek donations to extend the length of time it can provide the support.

“How do we help” the “Young Rock” star said he and Winfrey asked each other during the wildfires, saying in a video released along with the announcement that they grappled with how to best direct their efforts. “You want to take care of the greatest need of the people, and that’s giving them money.”

They are looking forward to the help of “every person who called me and said, ‘What can I do’” Winfrey said in the video. “This is what you can do.”

The pair were inspired by a similar fund set up by Dolly Parton after wildfires swept through Gatlinburg, Tennessee in December 2016, killing 14 people and destroying 2,400 structures.

Jeff Conyers, president of The Dollywood Foundation, said he consulted with Winfrey’s team multiple times in the past weeks to share the lessons that they’d learned from administrating the fund, which eventually granted 11 million to families who had lost their homes.

“Dolly’s idea was that, ‘Hey, look, these are my people and I want to take care of them and we trust them to know what recovery looks like for themselves and their families in the days and weeks following this immediate catastrophe here,’” Conyers said.

Parton’s fund, called My People Fund, worked with first responders and a local utility company and asked residents to help them determine which structures were destroyed and who lived in those homes, Conyers said. Around 1,000 families eventually received assistance from the fund, according to an evaluation from the University of Tennessee Knoxville College of Social Work. That included a final 5,000 lump sum transfer at the end of six months.

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