Obama to give Nobel Peace Prize award to 10 charities
Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama will donate his $1.4 million 2009 Nobel Peace Prize award to 10 charities, the White House announced Thursday.
The organizations receiving the money "do extraordinary work in the United States and abroad helping students, veterans and countless others in need," Obama said in a statement. "I'm proud to support their work."
The list of charities includes:
- $250,000 to Fisher House, a group that helps provide housing for families of patients receiving medical care at military and Veterans Affairs medical centers;
- $200,000 for the Clinton-Bush Haiti fund, which supports relief efforts in the earthquake-ravaged nation;
- $125,000 for the College Summit, which helps prepare students for college;
- $125,000 for the United Negro College Fund, which helps more than 60,000 students attend college annually;
- $125,000 to the Posse Foundation, which awards four-year full-tuition scholarships to students who, according to the White House, "may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes";
- $125,000 to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which has awarded scholarships to over 90,000 students over a 34-year history;
- $125,000 to the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, which supports higher education opportunities for students from Appalachia;
- $125,000 to the American Indian College Fund, which provides over 6,000 scholarships annually to Native American students;
- $100,000 to AfriCare, which supports programs primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa dealing with health, food, and water resource development; and
- $100,000 to the Central Asia Institute, which backs education and literacy efforts for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Obama was awarded the Nobel prize for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Obama said he viewed the decision less as a recognition of his own accomplishments and more as "a call to action."
The president accepted the prize in a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, in December.
The decision caught most observers by surprise. Obama had not been mentioned as one of the front-runners for the prestigious award.
The last sitting U.S. president to win the peace prize was Woodrow Wilson in 1919. The other was Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Jimmy Carter had been out of office for more than two decades when he won in 2002.
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The full list (I don't know why CNN didn't give them all):
250k Fisher House
200k Clinton-Bush Haiti fund
125k College Summit
125k Posse Foundation
125k United Negro College Fund
125k Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation
125k American Indian College Fund
100k AfriCare
100k Central Asia Institute
All perfectly calculated by the WH strategists.
Hearing people from MAINE and NEW HAMPSHIRE blindly support the Obamanation is hilarious. You live in States that are 99% White and have no idea what goes on in the rest of the country. Get a clue.
ANYTHING the president does, good or bad, he will be criticized for…its customary..It comes with the job.
Sarah Palin and Rush will find some stupid way to make a good deed look bad….ohh how they make me sick…lol
Bravo. Where did the other Nobel Prize winners donate their award?
He did the right thing. By law, anything a President receives belongs to the American people and has to be given away, so he had no choice.
However; the charities will truly benefit.
Keep up the work Mr. President!
You are a better man than I would be. After all the hell you and your family have unnecessarily gone through, I wouldn't blame you one bit if you would have kept it for yourself. But instead you chose to be such a better person, rather than a bitter, selfish person. God Bless you and this nation.
Mr. President,
You show how much class you have EVERY DAY! Wonderful news that Anericans can be proud of !! You are a fine example to all of us!! Thank you!!
The Fisher House, Bravo Mr. President, once again you prove to be a class act! Truly top notch. You who would condemn him should be ashamed, I would bet not one of you knew what the Fisher House was before this article and still do not have any idea how integral it can be to military families, when their service members are injured.
I can't wait to vote for you again sir.
LT PJ Meyerpeter
USN
Whoever this is is reading my comments and not posting them so how about an answer. You are starting to show your liberal bias. LMAO. No wonder your ratings sucks.
To everyone criticizing the fact that the President donated to the UNCF, do a little more research and you will find that he gave the same amount of money to these other scholarship funds: the Hispanic Scholarship Fund; the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation; and the American Indian College Fund.
Way to go, Barack! We love you!
To "Lee" @ 5:16 pm ...
YOU are the blind one here!
Great choices Mr. President!
All of us are aware of the public discussion of personal generosity and charity that was generated when the public learned that Vice President Al Gore’s charitable giving in 1997 was only $353. Because of politics, we also know that Senator John Kerry, presidential candidate in 2004, gave nothing to charity in more than one year when he was a U.S. Senator. Before his marriage to Teresa Heinz (whose reported fortune was half a billion dollars), Kerry’s 1991–1995 charitable contributions were ($0, $820, $175, $2039, $0), less than one-half of one percent of his income for the period. In contrast, private citizen George W. Bush gave ($28,236, $31,914, $31,292) in 1991–1993. His highest giving was 15.7 percent of income and his average 9.1 percent. As Texas governor he gave
$27,000 (6.5 percent of income) and $9,178 (2.3 percent) in the next two years, after which his giving returned to higher levels.
To those of you who wonder about the President using this prize to his advantage for tax purposes, any American that wins the NPP gets the cash award tax free. The President, however, cannot keep any prize moneis won while in office. What he has done is to notify the Prize Committee of how he wants the funds distributed and therefore he will not get the funds in hand. If you look at his taxess this year, you will see the prize funds distribution on his tax form. It is such a shame that this man can do no good in the eyes of some people. I am confident that if he put our economy on top before leaving office and then walked on water, there would be people that would complaine about that.
Following is a breakdown of Obama's donations:
– $250,000 to Fisher House, a national nonprofit organization providing accommodation for families of patients receiving medical care at military and Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers.
– $200,000 to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, which was set up in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake to help survivors.
– $125,000 to College Summit, a national nonprofit organization to increase college enrollment rates.
– $125,000 to the Posse Foundation, which awards scholarships to promising public high school students.
– $125,000 to the United Negro College Fund.
– $125,000 to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.
_ $125,000 to the American Indian College Fund.
– $125,000 to the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation.
– $100,000 to AfriCare, which promotes health, food security and access to water primarily in Africa.
– $100,000 to the Central Asia Institute, which education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
A W E S O M E!!!
President Barack Obama is a extraordinary man. Presidebt Barack Obama is helping students, veterans and countless others in need. Outstanding job Mr President, God bless you
Unless Kevin in Ohio is a Native American, he should also have to go back to where his ancestors came from. I bet it's a socialist European country.
So he won an award that he does not deserve, and now he tries to diverge this fact by giving it to the charities that deserve it.
United Negro College Fund is nothing more than racism. Time for minorities to fend for themselves. After all, last time I checked our president was black. Get off the race card. Stop making excuses.
To all you haters... They have been giving this award away a long time, I think the Nobel guys know what they are doing......
Jonathan Reese - March 11th, 2010 4:02 pm ET
I thought the word "negro" was supposed to be a bad word now? If so then why is Obama giving money to the United Negro College Fund?
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I doubt that if a 'normal' person were to try his HARDEST, he wouldn't be able to come up with a dumber post than this one. 😦
BRAVO!
IowaMark – March 11th, 2010 5:15 pm ET- So what?
'Lee – March 11th, 2010 5:16 pm ET
Hearing people from MAINE and NEW HAMPSHIRE blindly support the Obamanation is hilarious. You live in States that are 99% White and have no idea what goes on in the rest of the country. Get a clue.'
So? The only support from the pOTUS MUST come from those of his race? Are you Nazi or what dude/lady?
Kevin in Ohio – March 11th, 2010 4:47 pm ET
'No, George Bush didn't win the Nobel Prize, but were you DEAF when all the crap was being dished out by liberals over the eight years he was in office?'
So after realizing that them, like the whole American people, had been lied to (WMD, links between Iraq under Saddam an Al Qaeda) in order help the (R) to approve all laws (including the shameful Patriot Act) that he wanted to...
And after all the blatant demonstrations of mismanagements and illegal acts of him and his buddies...
The Dems were supposed to stay quiet?