Our immigrants who have become famous benefactors in the US

Among the immigrants who are on the lists of American millionaires are many, the names of our former compatriots. Having achieved financial well-being, many join the ranks of philanthropists. Such people include Maria Sharapova, Sergey Brin, Pavel Durov, Yuri Milner, Sam Simonyan. These names are on everyone's lips, but with what, how and to whom do they help?

Maria Sharapova

Russian tennis player, a former first racket of the world, one of ten women in History who possesses the so-called “career helmet” (won all Grand Slam tournaments, but in different years), is one of the leaders in advertising earnings among world athletes. Honored Master of Sports of Russia. He lives in the USA, Bradenton.

The Sharapova Foundation (Maria Sharapova Foundation), a charity foundation founded 10 years ago. The direction of the foundation’s activity was determined by its origin: Maria’s parents left her native Gomel several months before her birth, who was in the center of radioactive contamination after the accident at the Chernobyl power plant. After some time, Maria began to help young people from the regions affected by the disaster. It should be noted that the list of good deeds of Maria Sharapova was not limited to this.

The well-known Atlantic hurricanes 2004 of the year, which lasted from the beginning of the summer to the end of the autumn, caused damage to almost 60 billions of dollars and killed more 3000 lives. In the only offseason that Sharapova spent as the Wimbledon champion and the WTA final tournament, she played an exemplary match with Jennifer Capriati, whose proceeds were sent to the Atlantic Hurricane Foundation.

The tragic events in Beslan, in the same 2004 year, shook the whole world with their cruelty. According to official data, the number of hostages killed in the Beslan school was 323 people, of whom 156 children.

At the same time, Maria Sharapova, put up for auction Porshe, received for winning the final tournament, and the proceeds 56 thousands of dollars sent to the fund to help children in Beslan. Check Maria during the Australian open handed over to the Russian ambassador in Australia.

In 2007, Sharapova became the United Nations Development Programme’s Goodwill Ambassador (UNDP, UNDP). Of the eight Millennium Development Goals, Sharapova was assigned to work on poverty eradication. At a ceremony at the UN headquarters, 19-year-old Russian woman reported about donating thousands of dollars to 100, which she made through her Foundation in favor of eight youth projects in the regions of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine affected by the Chernobyl accident.

The following year, the Sharapova Foundation allocated 210 thousands of dollars for scholarships, which for five years should have been paid to 12 students from Chernobyl-affected areas of Belarus to study at the Belarusian Academy of Arts and the Belarusian State University. When asked why Maria pays so much attention to Belarus, she replied: “My family is from this region, and today the youth there suffer the most from poverty and lack of opportunities.”

In the 2017 year, on her last visit to Russia, Maria donated more than 2 million rubles from the sale of Sugarpova sweets to the needs of Russian orphanages.

Sergey Brin

Born in Moscow to a Jewish family of mathematicians, he moved to the USA for permanent residence in 1979. American entrepreneur and scientist in the field of computing, information technology and economics, a billionaire (13 place in the world) - the developer and founder (together with Larry Page) of the Google search engine. He lives in Los Altos, California. According to Forbes magazine, in 2016, with a fortune of 39,8 billion dollars, 13 ranks among the richest people on the planet.

Technology entrepreneur Sergey Brin runs Google, an organization that supports the largest charity projects. Before 2033, the corporation plans to invest $ 20 billion in charity projects - all of which will be implemented by the company itself. For example, now Google is creating a network of free Wi-Fi-points in India.

In November 2011, Sergey Brin donated 500 thousand dollars to the Wikipedia project.

In addition, together with his former wife Anne Wojzycki Bryn created a charitable foundation of the Brin Wojcicki Foundation, which donates funds for health development and other social projects.

Yuri Milner

Born 11 in the family of the scientist-economist Boris (Benzion) Zakharovich Milner (1929 — 2013). Mother - Betty Iosifovna Milner (born 1930), worked in the sanitary-epidemiological laboratory. Lives in the USA.

The co-owner of Mail.Ru Group and DST Global, Yuri Milner, joined 2013 in the year of the “Oath of Gift” organization, created by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and is actively investing in charity projects.

The Mail.Ru Group corporation, co-owner of Milner, takes part in charity initiatives. The company has developed the service “[email protected]”, with the help of which anyone can help those who need it. Every New Year, the corporation sends invitations to its partners to participate in the program - they can all make a small contribution at the expense of the corporation.

29 January 2011 announced that it is investing 150 in thousands of US dollars in each of the Y Combinator incubator startups.

In early August, 2012 Milner announced the establishment of the Prize in Fundamental Physics. In 3, he co-founded the Prize for Breakthrough in the Field of Medicine, and in the same year he co-founded the Prize for Breakthrough in Mathematics, each laureate of these awards was also awarded 2,5 million USD.

In July, 2015 announced its intention to fund the project Breakthrough Initiatives to search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. The project announced a Breakthrough Listen 10-year initiative for leasing monitoring time on several radio telescopes and processing the received data. Milner is ready to invest 100 million dollars in this initiative.

Together with partners, in August 2015 invested 90 million US dollars in the Indian medical startup Practo, designed for online patient registration and for communication between patients and doctors. The startup develops the application Practo (English) Russian ..

12 April 2016, together with Stephen Hawking, introduced the StarChip device, which moves thanks to the solar sail and, according to calculations, is capable of speeding up in 0,25 light. Milner plans to send several thousand such devices to different parts of the Universe, but first of all he is going to “reach” Alpha Centauri, the path to which will last for about 20 years (project Breakthrough Starshot).

Sam Simonyan

American entrepreneur of Armenian descent, founder of the Tumo Center for Creative Technologies. Lives in Dallas, USA.

Tumo was originally conceived as a center for post-secondary education for adolescents. The construction of the center began in 2003 and ended in 2009 — 2010. The opening ceremony of the Tumo Center was held on 14 on August 2011, and was accompanied by a concert by rock musicians Serge Tankian and Dorians.

In the first 5 years of the center’s existence, more than 10 thousands of people have been trained there. In 2016, the Tumo Center for Creative Technologies was in the first place in the ranking of innovative schools in the world, compiled by the French magazine “We demain”.

In January, 2013, with the support of the Central Bank of Armenia “Tumo”, opened a training program in Dilijan. In partnership with the All-Armenian Charitable Union, “Tumo” opened a branch in Gyumri in May 2015. In September 2015, a branch was opened in Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Why do I do charity

Statistics confirm: not individual large gifts, but millions of small donations form the basis of charity in the United States. Last year, according to the Giving USA Foundation, Americans donated more than $ 1 billion per day to charity. Today I am a volunteer fund Orange Penguin.

Photos from personal archive

I began my work by translating the stories of the children, who were helped by the foundation, from Russian to English. Without tears, reading these stories was impossible. These was a horror film in reality. But I decided that if my parents fight, then I also have no right to just leave.

Many friends did not support me, having organized it by saying that ... these children will die anyway, they say, what are you fighting for?

Spinal muscular atrophy of Verding-Hoffman. So the sentence of wards of our fund sounds. Yes, it is impossible to cure this disease. But it is possible to create conditions in which the child can be happy and develop, at home with a group of loving people.

Here, in America, kids with this disease are all getting insurance: equipment, medicines, a nurse. In the countries of the former USSR there is no such thing. Parents have to fight for the life of their own child. The Orange Penguin Foundation was created to help such families.

Founded in 2014, the foundation helps children with MCA and Cerebral Palsy who live in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. The fund collects money and buys the necessary equipment, and then sends it to needy children.

Now there are no questions “why charity is needed”. This is a responsibility that is considered traditional. There have always been people and social trends that require the intervention of the powerful, who are ready to help solve these problems. Poverty, epidemics, wars, environmental threats are what accompany the modern world. Real charity is designed to fight these factors. Only together can we change this world for the better.

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