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Tag: charitable donations

  • Trump Donates $100,000 To Alcoholism Research

    Trump Donates $100,000 To Alcoholism Research

    The president committed to donating his annual $400,000 salary to worthy causes as part of his 2016 campaign.

    President Donald Trump has donated $100,000 to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), a federal agency and branch of the National Institutes of Health.

    The $100,000 comes from his $400,000 yearly salary as president, which he promised to donate to worthy causes as part of his 2016 campaign. He has so far given away $100,00 each quarter to government departments including Veterans Affairs, the Small Business Administration, and the National Park Service.

    Alcoholism has touched the president personally. His brother, Fred Trump Jr., died from complications related to alcoholism in 1981 at the age of 43. According to Donald Trump, Fred advised him to never drink, and the president has repeatedly expressed his distaste for alcohol and drinking.

    Following the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to examine the sexual assault accusation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Trump expressed that he did not share Kavanaugh’s passion for beer.

    “I don’t drink beer,” Trump told reporters. “I’ve never had a beer. And I’m not saying good or bad, some people like it. I just choose not to do that for a lot of reasons.”

    An individual “close to the White House” also told The Washington Post that the president “doesn’t like drinkers.” Tony Schwartz, co-author of Trump’s memoir The Art of the Deal, has said that the main reason the president avoids alcohol is a fear of losing control.

    “One of the primary reasons I think Trump avoided alcohol was that he never wanted to be out of control,” said Schwartz. “It made him feel weak and vulnerable in any circumstance where he felt that was the risk.”

    Alcohol is known to lower inhibitions when consumed to intoxication.

    On the other hand, Tim O’Brien, author of TrumpNation, believed that Fred Trump’s alcoholism and early death had a significant effect on the president and his aversion to drinking.

    “I think he’s scared of the effects alcohol can have on people because he witnessed firsthand how it destroyed his brother’s life, and I think he’s a teetotaler because he’s scared of it in himself,” said O’Brien. 

    “I think Freddy’s journey sparks fear in the president, and it’s a tragedy in their family’s history, and both of those things make him very uncomfortable around people with a drinking problem.”

    According to the NIAAA, 15.1 million adults in the U.S. had alcohol use disorder in 2015, and there are 88,000 alcohol-related deaths yearly. Alcohol use and misuse is one of the leading causes of preventable death.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Chance The Rapper Pledges $1 Million For Mental Health

    Chance The Rapper Pledges $1 Million For Mental Health

    “We want to change the way that mental health resources are being accessed,” Chance said at a summit for his nonprofit, SocialWorks.

    As one of the more prominent hip hop artists to speak out about mental health, Chance the Rapper is putting his money where his mouth is by pledging $1 million to mental health services in Chicago.

    According to Rolling Stone, this is part of a new mental health initiative that Chance has launched called My State of Mind, which could grow into a major resource for people in the Chicago area who need help.

    As part of this initiative, six mental health wellness providers in Chicago will receive grants for $100,000 each.

    Chance announced his pledge at a summit for his nonprofit SocialWorks, stating, “We want to change the way that mental health resources are being accessed. We need a new space where people can get information on how they feel, on where to go and a network for us to interact and review our mental health spaces, and create a community of people helping people.”

    Chance has seen a lot of devastation in the south side of Chicago, a large part of the city which has been ravaged by gun violence. 

    Brad Stolbach, a clinical director at a Chicago treatment center, told The Root, “Every time a person gets shot, especially a young person, there are literally hundreds of people who are affected by that shooting.”

    Stolbach adds that the victims left behind are “not thought about.”

    Research studies showed that areas that have the most gun violence also have the highest rates of hospitalization for depression, anxiety, and PTSD, among other mental health disorders.

    When Chicago cut $113.7 million in funds for mental health services, Chance spoke out against the Mayor Rahm Emanuel for closing down six mental health clinics in 2012.

    Last year, Chance the Rapper told Complex, “A really big conversation and idea that I’m getting introduced to right now is black mental health. Cause for a long time that wasn’t a thing that we talked about. I don’t remember, when I was growing up, that really being a thing. Now I’m starting to get a better understanding of that part of my life.”

    Even though Chance experienced traumatic events growing up, he added, “I don’t ever want to convince myself that I’m hindered by any of my experiences. There’s definitely a lot of things that have happened in my life that would cause me to think a certain way or feel a certain way. But I don’t label those experiences as traumatic events. They are events that were paradigm shifts in my life, but I don’t know if they caused a disadvantage.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com