Jessica Biel and Shakira step it up at the Clinton Global Initiative

September 29, 2007 | Filed Under Jessica Biel, Shakira

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jessica biel at the clinton global initiative

Jessica Biel and Shakira, unlike 99% of the useless celebrity idiots we write about on this site, have done things positive and actually worth mentioning at this year’s Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).

Jessica, along with her father Jon Biel, founded the Make the Difference Network which aims to donate $30 million in its first year (growing to $60 million in year two!) to various non-profit groups:

Jessica Biel and her father Jon Biel founded the Make the Difference Network to allow everyone to be a “grassroots philanthropist” by creating a social networking site that brings thousands of small- to medium-sized non-profits together with millions of potential donors. Users will be able to search a list of specific “wishes” posted by non-profits and then fund those wishes. After the first year, $30 million will be donated to 5,000 non-profits at an average of $500 per month. The second year should see those numbers rise to 10,000 non-profits and $60 million donated, with a two-year total of $90 million.

That’s just awesome. Just FYI their site is invitation only.

Shakira, through her ALAS Foundation (ALAS = Fundación América Latina en Acción Solidaria) has contributed $45 million to address recent natural diasasters in Nicaragua and Peru and provide additional education funding to schools and children across Latin America. From TMZ:

The sexy singer announced the donation during Friday’s Clinton Global Initiative meeting. Forty million will go to Nicaragua and Peru to address recent natural disasters there, and an additional $5 million will go to educational projects benefiting children across Latin America.

You can see all of the amazing work done at this year’s CGI by clicking this link. If only more celebs would take the positive example set by Jesse and Shakira and actually do something productive and useful for the world, they too might be worth writing about. Until then, we’ll continue to call them out for being rich, useless fuckheads.

If YOU want to do something positive through the CGI, check out their public involvement site MyCommitment.