R&B superstar Usher gives $500 checks to brightest kids to improve community

by Simone Weichselbaum, New York Daily News

R&B superstar Usher is giving away $500 checks to some of the city’s brightest kids so they can make a change on the toughest streets in town.

The pop sensation has doled out five grants citywide since September to youngsters in Harlem and the Bronx for a shot at neighborhood glory. Kids in Queens and Brooklyn are also eligible to apply for the youth grants.

“It’s a matter of putting the skills and the financial resources directly in their hands and letting them create change on their terms,” Usher said.

The grants are part of the crooner’s nonprofit New Look that expands his Power by Service project.

CC spreads holiday cheer in hometown

by Bryan Hoch, MLB.com

Yankees ace CC Sabathia helped to make it a happier holiday season in his hometown of Vallejo, Calif., on Monday, playing Secret Santa for the children from the Foster A Dream nonprofit organization.

Sabathia’s “PitCCh In” Foundation made two stops in the hurler’s old stomping grounds, greeting the children from Foster A Dream at a Toyota dealership in Vallejo before presenting each child with a $200 shopping spree at a Sports Authority in Vacaville, Calif.

“Anytime I get a chance to do something here in Vallejo, I try to do what I can,” Sabathia said in an interview on the MLB Network. “It’s fun being able to get back to Vallejo and hang out with my family and see everybody. I’m just excited to be here.”

Vernon Davis of the San Francisco 49ers uses fashion and art for philanthropy

by Patrice Worthy,  Examiner

Vernon Davis may be known as the 2006 first round draft pick and starting tight end for the San Francisco 49ers, but he is also known for his love of the arts. A full fledged Renaissance man, Davis is setting the standard for sophistication and bringing philanthropy back into style.

Davis lives up to a standard of excellence on and the off the field. Whatever Davis takes on he makes it his business to be the best.

“My ambition is to be successful in everything I do,” he says. “It’s important because anything you do you should be the best at it because you only live once.”

In this lifetime, Davis is a star football player, painter and is he also being recognized for his serious take on fashion. David was asked to host the Styling the Modern Man event in San Francisco where he and other fashionable men let the world know what it means to be masculine and debonair.

Oprah Gives to Atlanta School

by Michael Cieply, New York Times

The Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta got an unexpected holiday gift from Oprah Winfrey: an unsolicited check for $365,000. Ron Clark, founder of the academy, a private school in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, had twice appeared on Ms. Winfrey’s television show. But he was not expecting the unsolicited donation that fluttered out of a letter from her, according to an Associated Press report. Ms. Winfrey made the gift through the Oprah Winfrey Foundation, which frequently contributes to educational programs. Mr. Clark wrote “The Essential 55,” a best-selling book about teaching. Last year he opened his school with donations and proceeds from the book.

Ex-Razorback Brewer donates to UA African-American studies

by Dustin Tracy, Northwest Arkansas Times

Former Razorback and Fayetteville High School basketball standout Ronnie Brewer shared his success with future University of Arkansas students on Wednesday. Brewer, who is going into his third season with the National Basketball Association’s Utah Jazz, donated $ 50, 000 to the African-American studies program in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Cookie and Magic Johnson and Spike Lee help fight HIV among blacks

by Mary Engel, Los Angeles Times

“Ladies,” said Cookie Johnson, looking straight into the camera, her husband’s arm draped across her shoulders. “Have you been tested . . . ”

” . . . for HIV?” finished Lakers basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson.

As the most prominent African American face of HIV, Johnson, who is now a businessman and philanthropist, has long used his fame to raise public awareness of the virus that causes AIDS.

African American Empowerment Fund of Delaware Launched

More than 100 of Delaware’s black community leaders turned out Tuesday evening to launch the African American Empowerment Fund of Delaware, a new philanthropic initiative of the Delaware Community Foundation to establish a permanent source of funding for causes important to African Americans throughout Delaware.

“Our mission is to establish a legacy of leadership in promoting philanthropy to fund causes important to the education, social and economic empowerment of African American Delawareans,” cited Sylvia S. Banks, interim chairperson and Manager of Corporate Contributions and Memberships for DuPont.

USC receives $25M from African-American

OS ANGELES (KABC) — USC is the recipient of the largest gift from an African-American made to a U.S. University.

On Friday, the school announced that Verna B. Dauterive would be making a $25 million donation in the name of her late husband Peter Dauterive.

He was a USC business graduate who would later go on to establish a Los Angeles savings and loan association that provided inner-city mortgages to customers.

Verna Dauterive says that the gift is a way to thank the school for its “dedication to diversity and global outreach.”

This is not the first time that the Dauterives have been generous with their resources. In 1985, the couple endowed the school’s first scholarship for minority doctoral students.

SOURCE: ABC7