Bruna Papandrea and Gregg Fienberg founded the It Takes Our Village initiative with Kenya Barris, Derek Cianfrance, Jon M. Chu and other industry colleagues.
A coalition of industry producers, writers and directors have come together to launch the It Takes Our Village COVID-19 relief fund for film and TV crewmembers left without work during Hollywood's production shutdown.
Bruna Papandrea, founder and CEO of Made Up Stories, and producer Gregg Fienberg assembled industry backing from producers Molly Allen, David E. Kelley and Stephanie Allain, writer-directors Derek Cianfrance and Dana Fox, actor Mark Ruffalo and others to support film and TV crewmembers via a GoFundMe page gofundme.com/ItTakesOurVillage, with a goal of $2.5 million.
The campaign will hand out funds to crewmembers via the Motion Picture & Television Fund and The Actors Fund. Both organizations are distributing emergency relief money to help workers in the entertainment industry who are suffering COVID-19 related hardships.
The goal is to hand out $1,000 to individual crewmembers and possibly more for those with families. Other industry supporters include Lynette Howell Taylor, founder of 51 Entertainment; showrunner Pam Veasey; writer-director Lesli Linka Glatter; Jess Wu Calder, co-founder of Snoot Entertainment; Steve Hutensky, a producer at Made Up Stories; and Liza Chasin, a producer and founder of 3dot Productions.
The GoFundMe page indicates Fienberg donated $25,000 to the relief fund, while Papandrea and Hutensky jointly gave $20,000.
Other Hollywood players have donated to relief funds amid the coronavirus crisis, including Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, who split their donation between Feeding America and Food Banks Canada. Elsewhere, Bob Iger, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg each donated $500,000 to a government fund to help those in need in Los Angeles.
And Comcast CEO Brian Roberts' family gave $5 million to buy Philadelphia students laptops for remote learning amid the crisis. Also on the corporate side, WarnerMedia, Netflix and Sony have set up $100 million funds to assist their out-of-work crewmembers.
