Chauncey Billups - Charities

From the NBA:  Walter J. Kennedy Citizenship Award  2008
The award, which is voted on by the Professional Basketball Writers Association, is given to a player or coach who shows "outstanding service and dedication to the community." Billups has hosted a charity golf tournament in Detroit in each of the last three summers, and also is involved in work in Minneapolis and his hometown of Denver.

"It's a great award," Billups said in a statement. "The thing about doing stuff like that, doing charity work and having a big heart, you never do it for the accolades. You do it for the kids. You try and teach kids a better way than the alternative, which is being in a neighborhood doing bad things, and getting bad results. It's good to be recognized for it, but at the same time, that's not why you do it."

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The Porter-Billups Leadership Academy -- Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups' main charitable effort is his involvement with Regis University for an academic summer camp that readies kids for college and provides scholarships to help balance tuition and fees at the university. Visit www.porter-billups.org

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The Porter-Billups Academy, a non-sports institute partnered by Lonnie Porter, Regis University’s men’s basketball coach and Chauncey Billups of the Denver Nuggets , helps students become leaders among their peers, see education as a path to success, graduate from high school and attend college. About 90 percent of the Academy students will be the first members of their families to attend college.

For three-weeks this summer, the Porter-Billups Academy welcomes students. Ranging in grades from fourth through their junior year in high school, these students aren’t normally termed overachievers. Students are accepted into the Academy based on their at-risk status, with academic potential. The goal of the Academy is to enroll kids while they are in elementary school and put them on the path to higher education. In the Academy, students master skills that aren’t taught in a traditional classroom such as critical thinking, teamwork, conflict-resolution and money management.

Support continues throughout the school year to ensure that Academy students’ grades and behavior records are good. During high school, they take college prep courses, sit for achievement tests such as the ACT, and apply to colleges.  ( Courtesy of www.porter-billups.org )