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.