Paris Hilton poses at the red carpet during the 68th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, Calif., Feb. 1. Reuters-Yonhap
The pop culture star, advocate and entrepreneur Paris Hilton launched an initiative Monday to support female small-business owners impacted by disasters, a nationwide expansion of her philanthropic support for women entrepreneurs after the 2025 Los Angeles fires.
Hilton is donating $350,000 to kick-start the Back in Business Recovery Fund, with a goal to raise at least $1 million by the end of March.
“Women-owned businesses are really the heart of so many of these communities,” Hilton told The Associated Press. “I want to be able to lift up and support them, shine a light on them and really make a difference in their lives.”
The new initiative will be a partnership between Hilton's social impact organization 11:11 Media Impact and GoFundMe.org, which is the philanthropic arm of the fundraising platform GoFundMe and will contribute $100,000 to the fund’s launch.
Hilton and those organizations deployed over $1 million in cash grants to 50 women-owned small businesses after the LA fires, which destroyed her own Malibu home.
Losing the home where she was raising her young children has been “very emotional,” Hilton said, and spurred her to think of other mothers who'd lost not just houses but income to support their families.
The grants of up to $25,000 went to owners of child care centers, bakeries, bookshops, dance studios and salons damaged by the Eaton fire, which devastated the community of Altadena. The money helped cover rent, payroll, replacing equipment and rebuilding.
One year later, 90 percent of the grantee businesses are still operating, according to the Pasadena Women's Business Center, which also received a grant to provide technical assistance and mentorship to impacted enterprises.
The grantees included Renata Ortega, who ran her floral design company Orla Floral Studio from a converted garage next to the Altadena home she shared with her husband and three dogs.
Source: Korea Times News
