Gucci donates $500,000 to help distribute Covid-19 vaccines

Luxury brand Gucci, owned by French group Kering, will give at least $500,000 to UNICEF to help supply and distribute COVID-19 vaccines to vulnerable people around the world, it said on Friday.

In addition to the $500,000 donation, Gucci said it would match money raised for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) by up to $100,000, and invited its followers to donate through the platform gucci.benevity.org/community between Dec. 5 and 26.

The U.N. agency is raising funds for COVAX, a programme, led by the World Health Organization and the GAVI vaccine group, to pool funds from wealthier countries and non-profit organisations to buy and distribute vaccines to poorer countries. COVAX has so far raised $2 billion.

Gucci’s cash will fund activities such as the supply of test kits to curb community transmission, cold chain equipment to keep doses of vaccines effective and the transport of vaccines.