Charities thank Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce for generous donations

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have received thanks for their $1 million "love letter to New York".

The couple are set to tie the knot this weekend and to mark the happy occasion, they have donated $26 million to 20 named charities in meaningful locations including their rumoured wedding location in the Big Apple, as well as organisations in their home states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, in Tennessee, where the Fate of Ophelia singer moved with her family when she was a teenager so she could pursue a career in country music, in Rhode Island, where the singer owns a large coastal mansion, and in Kansas City, Missouri, where Travis plays football for the Kansas City Chiefs.

And City Harvest, New York City's largest food rescue organisation, said the $1 million they received will help provide food to more than 2.4 million this summer.

CEO Jilly Stephens said: "We are incredibly grateful for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's generous $1 million donation to City Harvest. This donation is a love letter to New York, and a bold commitment to our efforts to ensure that no New Yorker goes hungry.

"Their support comes at a critical time, with visits to New York City soup kitchens and food pantries near record highs and expected to increase further in response to federal funding cuts."

Staff at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank admitted they were initially in disbelief when they were told of the donation they would receive.

CEO Melissa Cherney told People magazine: "As soon as we got the call, a couple of our staff had a moment of disbelief and we were speechless.

"We felt like we needed to pinch each other because it was sort of our wildest dreams come true if I could use a Taylor Swift song."

"It happened just yesterday. We got a call actually from Feeding America, the national organization, which is also a wonderful organization that got a donation, and they called us and said, ‘Boy, have we got some exciting news for you.'

"And they connected us with a member of Taylor's team, and really from there, the ball just started rolling and it's been really quick. It was sort of all hands on deck and we're just running on excitement and adrenaline because this is absolutely incredible.

"A $ 1,000,000 gift is certainly one of the largest gifts we have ever gotten here at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, and it comes at such a time of high need across the summer. And I know there are rumored nuptials happening this weekend, and this just goes to show how generous and kind they are, giving back to communities that they call home.

"This $1,000,000 will be used to purchase food. That is our highest need, and right now, during the summer, we're serving over 90,000 Rhode Islanders. And we're serving a lot of kids, so we are serving meals right now to about 500 kids five days a week. This is gonna go to support all of them, to make sure that they've got food on their tables and that kids are going to bed with full bellies."

Los Angeles Regional Food Bank's Chief Development Officer, Roger Castle, described receiving the news in a phone call earlier this week as a "fantastic Wednesday before the holiday weekend."

He added that staff were "super excited that this is the way Travis and Taylor are celebrating their love story", and noted the donation will provide approximately four million meals.