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Matthew McConaughey surprises Houston heroes for First Responders Day

Matthew McConaughey Houston visit police fire dept mayor

The Academy Award-winning actor and Texas native visited Houston police, firefighters, and 911 dispatchers.

Photo courtesy of ABC13

In honor of National First Responders Day, Houston's finest received a surprise visit.

On Sunday, October 28, Houston police tweeted out photos of actor Matthew McConaughey bringing lunch to the officers. The Academy Award-winning actor and Texas native also spent some time with Houston firefighters and 911 dispatchers.

McConaughey said he wanted to visit his home state to honor the first responders who were on the front lines following Hurricane Harvey.

"I'm Texas born and raised, so acknowledging the hard work and dedication of first responders in Houston is meaningful to me personally," said McConaughey. "Over the past year alone with the hurricanes in Puerto Rico, the Carolinas and Florida and the fires in California, the number of heroic men and women on the front lines of natural disasters is staggering."

Thank you #WildTurkeyGivesBack and @McConaughey for bringing a turkey lunch to our officers for #FirstRespondersDay #relationalpolicing pic.twitter.com/Hzphoga4D5

— Houston Police (@houstonpolice) October 28, 2018

The event was sponsored by Wild Turkey, which is part of its annual Wild Turkey Gives Back campaign.

Wild Turkey has made a donation of $10,000 to Team Rubicon, a disaster response organization that trains and deploys military veterans and first responders to communities affected by natural disasters.

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For more on this story, including video, visit our content partner ABC13.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”