As Taylor Swift sang on the third night of her record-breaking Eras Tour in Edinburgh’s BT Murrayfield Stadium: “It’s nice to have a friend.”
Swift brought these lyrics to life in the Scottish capital earlier this week, continuing her streak of charitable giving alongside the Eras Tour.
According to the Edinburgh Food Project, the megastar made a sizable donation while she was in town.
While the organization — which manages eight food banks in the area — has not revealed the value of the donation, they said it would make a major impact on the 6,000+ people they serve annually.
“We are thrilled that Taylor has decided to support the food banks and leave a lasting impact on Edinburgh,” the Food Project’s director Bethany Biggar, told The Herald.
“Things are really tough for a lot of people right now, so it is lovely to see someone like Taylor spreading such positivity.”
Edinburgh Food Project tried to amplify Swift’s donation by recruiting her enormous fanbase of Swifties on X (formerly Twitter).
“As fans gathered at Murrayfield Stadium on Friday for the first of three record-breaking gigs, we found out that Taylor Swift would be making a donation to support food banks across the city,” the organization wrote. “Want to help? Donate £13.”
They shared a cheeky hashtag (#IYKYK) with a link to donate, hoping to garner some additional support by encouraging folks to donate in increments mirroring the singer’s lucky number.
Of course, the Swifties love to follow in the generous footsteps of their idol.
“I make this donation in honor of Taylor Swift's efforts against extreme poverty and hunger,” one fan, Luis Enrique Quiñones-Ramírez, wrote alongside a £13 donation. “I count myself as her fan, and I'm proud of her donations during the course of her current world tour.”
This is far from the first time Swifties have done good in the name of their fav. Along Eras Tour stops last year, Brazilian Swifties helped raise funds for community members in need as a way to welcome Swift, for example.
Meanwhile, a group of LGBTQ+ Swifties held a “Tortured Poets Department” listening party to raise funds for unhoused transgender neighbors this spring.
Swift herself seems to have stuck to food banks as her charitable giving lane. To kick off the 2023 leg of the Eras Tour, the singer made sizable gifts to food banks in Glendale, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada.
She also made headlines when she gave her tour truck drivers an enormous bonus in August 2023, reportedly adding $100,000 to their checks, adding up to about $5 million divided among 50 drivers.
According to CNN, Swift insisted on writing a handwritten note to each driver, topped off with a wax seal on the envelope with her monogram. Each envelope stated the amount of the bonus.
“The drivers didn’t want to be overly rude and look at it,” said Michael Scherkenbach, founder and CEO of Shomotion, the truck driving company Swift uses.
“But one looked and thought it said $1,000, another driver saw it as $10,000 and then the third said ‘Well this has to be a joke!’” he continued to CNN.
Regardless of the disbelief surrounding Swift’s many generous donations, they are certain to be put to good use — and suggest that this poet might not be so tortured after all.
Header photo courtesy of Ronald Woan (CC BY-SA 2.0) and Arran Bee (CC BY 2.0)
