John Paul has been friends with Clint Eastwood since they met in 1990 in Los Angeles around the same time he met his wife Eloise. As longtime friends, they have remained active in supporting each other through business ventures and charity sponsorships. Clint’s daughter Alison is the founder of Eastwood Ranch — a non-profit Southern California based Animal Welfare and Rescue Organization. They rescue domestic animals from high kill shelters and support other vetted local rescues to provide care until a forever home is found. John Paul and Eloise recently attended their event full of their friends the Eastwoods and Paul Anka. Anka surprised John Paul and the audience by singing a new rendition of My Way about the animals and their supporters — even name checking John Paul! You can hear the song below! We are proud supporters of Eastwood Ranch and their work to protect animals.
John Paul on KVUE
John Paul was recently featured on KVUE Austin about his work with nonprofits benefitting unhoused people in Central Texas. You can watch the whole thing here!
Salvation Army Day of Giving
Our foundation committed $250,000 as a matching grant challenge to help kick start Salvation Army Austin’s Day of Giving in July 2021. Our central Texas community rallied together, and we are thrilled with what we accomplished together! In total, the Day of Giving raised more than $750,000 that will fund more than 18,700 nights of shelter for individuals and families. You can see more local coverage of the event and its impact on KVUE’s Austin Salvation Army to host Day of Giving Thursday and FOX 7’s Salvation Army of Austin's Day of Giving.
Grow Appalachia
One of the best things about having 10 years under our belt as a foundation is the ability to go back to projects and check in with people that we have known for 10 years now — to see how their lives have changed and gotten better throughout our partnership. We, of course, have changed and improved as we learn from our partners over the last decade. Our longest relationship, with Grow Appalachia, has shaped our investments and what we believe is possible in food security. John Paul actually created the program in partnership with Berea College eleven years ago, before the foundation started, with a phone call and a personal check, to help people in Appalachia grow their own food.
Last week our director, Constance Dykhuizen, went to Kentucky to visit with the Grow Appalachia team and honor the retirement of Grow Appalachia’s founding director, David Cooke. We are so grateful for David’s leadership, integrity, and dedication to this program. It is the only program of its kind in the U.S. that assists people in growing food and scaling up to be a commercial grow if they so chose. We visited Seth and Sheryl Long’s Southdown Farm in Letcher County — an impressive organic garden, CSA producer and maple syrup-harvesting operation that has long been a part of Grow Appalachia. We visited more backyard gardens, Cowan County Community Center’s programs and farmers’ market and Pine Mountain Settlement School. All of these community partners have been instrumental in providing support and creating a more sustainable food system in the region.
Grow Appalachia’s new director, Candace Mullins, is sticking to the core tenets of the program while also moving in some exciting directions. You can read about the program’s impact on the region below and see more about what they have in store in their three-year strategic plan.
Since 2010, Grow Appalachia has:
Partnered with 6000 families through 60 nonprofits across 6 states.
Harvested 4.4 million pounds of food worth an estimated $13.3 million.
Created and hosted programs for people in 60 counties of central Appalachia.
Installed 138 high tunnels to help produce more food while generating revenue.
Supported 146 farmers with business development.
ConnectHER Endowment
When we first attended the Girls Impact the World Film Festival in 2014 at Harvard University, we knew it was something special. Young filmmakers from around the world told their stories alongside such established storytellers and speakers as Abigail Disney and Ian Somerhalder. Short films told of stories about female cotton pickers in Pakistan and teenagers in America dealing with unhealthy beauty standards. We were hooked!
As an actress and producer herself, Eloise loves to support young, talented voices. She has been a presenting sponsor of ConnectHER’s film festival for the last seven years., In 2020, the film festival officially changed their name the ConnectHER Film Fest. In addition, they launched a fellowship to help train filmmakers of all ages in places where there isn’t always access to cameras and education. They also hosted their first ever Pitch Fest at their International Women’s Day Event earlier this month that awarded money to a young woman to South Africa who won the pitch competition to get her film made. Even with all the challenges of the last year, they still found ways to grow and get more scholarships and training to filmmakers around the world. Eloise and John Paul wanted to do something to make sure their work would continue into the future. To make sure this happened, they donated $100,000 to start ConnectHER’s first ever endowment. We were thrilled to tell founder Lila Igram in person just yesterday.
One thing we haven’t even mentioned is that they provide a micro-grant each month to organizations working on issues like girls’ education, maternal health and preventing child marriage. You can join us in supporting their work as a Giving Circle member or Gem or just follow along with their incredible selection of events and projects.
JP’s Peace, Love & Happiness Family Foundation Endowed Chair at UT Dell Medical
We are so excited and proud to announce a $2 million gift to UT Dell Medical to endow a chair that will ensure that unhoused people in Austin have access to quality medical care.
Dr. Tim Mercer, assistant professor of population health and internal medicine, leads the school’s work to develop long-term, sustainable approaches to caring for those without homes in partnership with CommUnityCare Health Centers and Integral Care. Mercer practices as a primary care physician for CommUnityCare’s Health Care for the Homeless program:
“People experiencing homelessness and other vulnerable populations require innovative care models to address their health and social needs. JP and his family get this, and we are so humbled and grateful for their support. This endowment will allow Dell Med to make a permanent commitment to taking responsibility for the health and well-being of this population in our community.”
Mercer and his team lead the federal grant-funded Mobile, Medical and Mental Health Care Team serving people experiencing chronic homelessness who have a chronic medical condition, serious mental illness, and substance use disorder. Additionally, with his team at CommUnityCare, they collaborate with Austin Public Health and the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) to test, treat — and now vaccinate — this population for COVID-19, while ensuring people have a safe place to quarantine and recover.
JP’s Peace, Love & Happiness Family Foundation Endowed Chair will support the continuation and expansion of Dell Med’s street medicine programs, research, and training the next generation of doctors skilled at caring for vulnerable populations. As you know by now, John Paul lived in his car while getting his businesses started:
“At one time in my life I was homeless; I know what it’s like. The American dream happened for me. True success is doing something for someone else and asking nothing in return — success unshared is failure. My family and I wanted to invest in a permanent position to help people in need, and UT and Dr. Tim Mercer are the perfect partner for this.”
In the last year, as the pandemic’s effects became evident in vulnerable populations, we previously donated to support health care for people experiencing homelessness, including COVID-19 treatment, testing and contact tracing. John Paul also donated 20,000 surgical masks and 1,000 rapid COVID-19 tests to aid mobile testing teams caring for people without homes, as well as personally delivered meals for vaccination staff at UT Health Austin. We are so thrilled about Dr. Mercer’s work and for this gift to continue to benefit people for years to come.
We're Texas
We’re proud to be a supporting sponsor of the We’re Texas virtual benefit concert with our good friends Matthew McConaughey, Camila Alves and j.k. livin foundation that will help Texans recover from the winter storm. Check out all that talent! Join us on March 21st at 7PM CT at YouTube.com/MatthewMcConaughey or watch on Spectrum News 1 in Texas.
Also, please Donate! Donate! Donate! Go to jklivinFoundation.org or text TEXAS to 20222 and give a one-time $10 donation.
✌🏽
What do you give the man who gives so much? For our 10 year anniversary, we know we wanted to surprise John Paul and present him with something unique and special to thank him for his vision and generosity these past 10 years. We worked with local Austin artist Evan Wilson to commission this sculpture of John Paul’s peace sign hand. Evan works out of the Mobile Loaves & Fishes Community Forge — just one of the many projects John Paul and the foundation have helped support over these last 10 years.
PLH x 10 Year Anniversary
January 2021 marks 10 years of us as a family foundation! We created a special page to celebrate with partners about their hard work and impact . Even though we had hoped to have a big party to celebrate, we are so grateful for friends that took the time to send us videos and celebrate with us virtually. We worked with some of our partners to create special limited edition items like PEACE, LOVE & HAPPY bracelets made by maker mums in Kenya with Ubuntu, custom painted bags from the artists who work at Community Works Entrepreneur Hub at Mobile Loaves & Fishes and heritage bean seeds from Grow Appalachia.
There are many ways to measure impact. We enjoy celebrating the stories, products and lives of those we get to invest in every day. Thanks so much for being a part of 10 years of peace, love and happiness!
2020 PLH Awards
Since 2020 has been a little (okay, a lot) different, we are trying something new this year. We looked at our local Austin community and wanted to award those who have done excellent work in the areas of homelessness and job readiness and entrepreneurship, especially in light of the challenges of this year. Some are existing partners, some are new, but all are doing the good and necessary work of peace, love and happiness in a year of so much uncertainty and loss.
We have given each of these organizations grants of $20,000 or more to help them keep their work going or expand their services and support here in Austin for people in need. Thank you so much to everyone — our nonprofit partners, first responders, healthcare workers, delivery people, teachers, parents, day care workers and all of you who put in everyday herculean efforts to keep your family and your community safe and thriving. We look forward to brighter things ahead in 2021, but, for now, let’s celebrate the people and organizations that went above and beyond in 2020:
Multicultural Refugee Coalition
