Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey on Friday donated $10 million to CORE, Sean Penn’s nonprofit organization that’s working to provide drive-through coronavirus testing. The donation is part of Dorsey’s recently-announced #StartSmall initiative, which pledges to contribute $1 billion towards coronavirus relief efforts.
CORE, which stands for Community Organized Relief Effort, helped administer 20,000 free tests in Los Angeles between late March and mid-April; it has since opened up similar testing locations in Oakland and Bakersfield, among other cities in California. Dorsey’s donation, according to the Google Doc tracking his payments, will help CORE set up similar testing sites “in major metropolitan cities as well as rural communities” in the U.S.
“CORE’s testing sites, which are already operating in Atlanta, Detroit and shortly in New Orleans and the Navajo Nation, are focused on serving vulnerable and underserved communities, including low-income groups and communities of color, as well as first responders and essential workers,” the doc added.
The organization, co-founded by Penn and CEO Ann Lee a decade ago, gave Dorsey a shoutout on Twitter on Friday. Dorsey returned the favor, saying CORE is doing “an incredible job expanding testing capacity”; he later tagged Penn’s dormant Twitter account and said, “we need you to start tweeting.”
$10mm to @CoreResponse for COVID-19 testing in Atlanta, Detroit, New Orleans, and the Navajo Nation. @SeanPenn @annyounglee and team are doing an incredible job expanding testing capacity, through an open-source model so others can quickly replicate. https://t.co/OYFVE6RMp2
— jack (@jack) May 8, 2020
For a full look at the organizations Dorsey has donated to, you can click here.