McConaughey launches new initiative to help schools get post-Uvalde safety grants

Matthew McConaughey is launching a new initiative that he says will help schools apply for safety grants that were included as part of legislation passed in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

“The long-term goal is to simplify this process, because it is not simple at all,” the “Dallas Buyers Club” actor said of his and his wife Camila’s Greenlights Grant Initiative, in an interview with Politico published Thursday.

According to a website launched Thursday, the effort helps “school districts nationwide access billions of dollars of available federal funding to create safer school environments and ensure the well-being of our children.”

The reportedly privately funded program came to fruition after the McConaugheys had dinner with Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) following the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act last year.

President Biden signed the legislation in June 2022 after it was drafted in response to mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, N.Y.

Nineteen children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School were killed in McConaughey’s hometown of Uvalde.

According to McConaughey, Gonzales told him that just 12 out of 119 schools in his district had applied for the $1 billion in school safety grants created by the bill.

“We noticed it was happening all over the place, that people were not aware or didn’t have the ability or the resources to fill out grants and write them competitively,” said McConaughey, who delivered an impassioned plea for “real change” on gun violence during an appearance at a White House press briefing just days after the May 2022 shooting.

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“That’s money to pay for mental health resources and security for safer schools to ensure that our kids can learn in peace and without fear,” McConaughey said in a video he shared Thursday on Twitter.

The goal of the Greenlights Grant Initiative, according to its website, is to ensure that the federal funding “is fully utilized by school districts across the country” before it can be reallocated in 2026 if it’s not distributed.

“That would make the passing of the bill a great symbol that wasn’t really activated and didn’t become useful, and I think that’d be a shame,” McConaughey told the publication.

“When Camila and I went to Uvalde, the parents and the family members of the children that were killed asked for one thing: ‘Make their lives matter,’” the 53-year-old Academy Award winner said in the video posted on social media.

“Let’s make sure that the first bill passed in 28 years to help protect all our children in schools matters.”