P. Diddy runs the city - P. Diddy - Sean Combs runs New York Marathon - fundraising effort for inner city children - Brief Article

Current Events, Jan 23, 2004

When hip-hop mogul Seem "P. Diddy" Combs decides to do something, he really kits the ground running. On November 2, 2003, Combs, after only two months of training, completed the 26.2-mile New York City Marathon in 4 hours, 14 minutes, 54 seconds. He had good motivation to finish--he was running to raise money for inner-city kids in New York City. Combs raised more than $2 million. He gave $1 million to New York's Department of Education to improve schools in poor neighborhoods. Combs says he wants to even the playing field for kids in tough neighborhoods. "It's evident that kids that are going to school in Harlem or in Brooklyn, they're not going to be able to get jobs in the workplace in the future because they won't have the same level of education that the kids in the suburbs and private schools have.... This is a travesty ... and we can't just let it go by," said Combs. "We have to do something about it."

Combs is splitting the other million dollars between two charities: his non-profit Daddy's House Social Programs, which provides educational aid to inner-city youth, and the Children's Hope Foundation, which helps young people with HIV and AIDS.