The Will Smith Foundation recently raised nearly $150,000 for children in San Antonio and on Maui through the foundation's third annual gala in San Antonio.
The foundation's mission is to locate the need and provide the means of giving positive life experiences to children through education, art, music, sports and acts of compassion.
On Maui, the foundation supports more than a dozen youth, community and school groups, among others.
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Students of ROOTS Maui, smile during an Earth Day cleanup project at Paia Bay on April 20.
The foundation also recently provided several grants to Maui nonprofit groups:
* ROOTS Maui school program recently received $3,000 for its new music program.
In addition, ROOTS, which stands for Real Ongoing Opportunities to Soar, also received $900 for ukuleles from the Fred Baldwin Memorial Foundation. ROOTS has small class sizes and provides students from kindergarten through 8th grade a traditional subject curriculum along with a choice of electives and current events activities, visits from guest speakers and community field trips.
* Maui Youth and Family Services received $4,000 for incentives for young people who participate in its outpatient and intensive outpatient substance abuse programs. The incentives are meant to encourage program participation and in turn decrease substance abuse. Funds will provide $5 gift cards to clients who show negative drug test results in semimonthly random tests.
* Malama Family Recovery Center received $3,000 to purchase toys for its on-site Early Learning Center, which provides early childhood care and learning services to infants and children up to age 5 at the center's residence. The center works to prevent or reduce the disabling effects related to alcohol and other drug use by providing treatment services to women.
The Will Smith Foundation was created after 8-year-old Smith died in a car accident on Maui on June 3, 2007. His mother, Susan Moulton, decided to start the foundation in her son's memory because even at a young age, she said, her son was insightful and was a true humanitarian.
