U2 Drummer Donates $100,000 to Navajo and Hopi Coronavirus Relief
May 29, 2020, 8:38 PM
Adam Clayton, Bono and Larry Mullen Jr of U2 perform at the National Stadium on November 30, 2019 in Singapore. (Photo by Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images)
(Photo by Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — U2 founding member and drummer, Larry Mullen, Jr, donated $100,000 to the Navajo and Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund.
Mullen’s donation is part of a 170-year long history between Native Americans and the Irish according to a news release from the Navajo and Hopi Families Relief Fund.
“Today, with Mr. Mullen’s contribution, over 25,500 Irish donors have contributed more than $870,000 to the Relief Fund and the Navajo and Hopi elders, immunocompromised, COVID-positive, and vulnerable families it serves,” the release said.
The Irish donated heavily to the relief fund’s Go Fund Me page in early May after reading news reports detailing the coronavirus crisis on the Navajo and Hopi reservations.
The Go Fund Me raised more than $4 million, the release said, and fund volunteers have served nearly 6,500 homes in nearly 70 communities on the Navajo Nation and 5 of the 12 Hopi Villages.
According to the release, during Ireland’s Potato Famine of 1847, the Choctaw Nation raised $170 dollars, worth about $5,000 today, for starving Irish families. That started a lasting partnership between Ireland and the tribes.
“We feel real kinship with the Irish, who have a shared legacy of colonization, and we are truly grateful for Mr. Mullen’s donation and all donations that have come from our Irish brethren,” said Relief Fund founder Ethel Branch. “Someday we hope to repay you for these beautiful and meaningful acts of solidarity made during our time of great need”, Branch said in her statement.
The news release said Mullen’s contribution will pay for a week of food and water deliveries to about 1,000 Navajo and Hopi homes with high risk family members.
More information on the relief fund can be found online.
The Navajo Nation is an area roughly the size of West Virginia and a portion of it is in the Four Corners area of Utah in San Juan County.
The state of Utah has donated medical aid and supplies to the Navajo.
Next week Utah Governor Gary Herbert and other state officials will deliver hundreds of live sheep.
The delivery is part of the state’s Farmers Feeding Utah program which delivered sheep, meat, flour and vegetables to the reservation earlier this week.
Farmers Feeding Utah is a partnership that includes the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, Utah State University, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.
