Mekhi Phifer(I)

Along with the Pennsylvania-based charity organization The Vine Group, he donated over $100,000 in scholarships, books and computers to Ibadan, Nigeria, where the Mekhi Phifer Education Center will open in 2005 to help poor children get an education.

I know a lot of people who are weak, who are in a perpetual cycle of poverty and being locked up. There are guys from my neighborhood who are in jail or who are dead. It does take a certain strength to know your environment and say, 'I can grow beyond it.'