Showbiz Moguls’ Gifts Benefit Chicago Youths and Hollywood Fund

Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas has pledged $25-million to a Chicago charity founded and long led by the city’s late former first lady, Maggie Daley, that offers after-school arts and education programs for teens, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

The five-year donation to After School Matters was announced Wednesday at a Chicago art gallery by Mellody Hobson, Mr. Lucas’s wife and the president of Ariel Investments, a financial firm based in the city. It will be used to restore stipends the charity pays to its 22,000 participating teens. The stipends were slashed two years ago due to city budget cuts.

Another Hollywood mogul, Viacom and CBS Chairman Sumner Redstone, is donating $20-million to the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which provides aid to show-business veterans in need, entertainment news site The Wrap writes. Mr. Redstone’s gift pushed the fund past the $300-million mark in a $350-million fundraising drive launched in February 2012. Several other Hollywood and media figures have made eight-figure gifts to the charity.

Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy article on the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s campaign.