PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia Eagles legend and NFL Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins has started a program that grants scholarships to Philadelphia single parents so they can afford summer camp and other extracurricular activities.
On a Friday afternoon, Dawkins sat at a table with about a dozen families at the Caring People Alliance Boys & Girls Club in North Philadelphia.
"It wasn't supposed to be me to have the success that I had as a professional player, anything. It was supposed to be so many other people in the neighborhood beside me," he told the families.
With his larger than life presence, Dawkins spoke with the sincerity and inspiration he has been known for outside of football.
"In my mind, they didn't know what I knew. I'm not gonna tell you and tell you that I thought I was gonna be a Hall of Famer," he said.
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"There's no way I thought that, but I believed that I was going to have success because I saw that. I envisioned it. I surrounded myself with the right people."
Dawkins said that for years, he also envisioned being able to bless single mothers like Aisha Bonaparte from North Philly.
"It helps out a lot, because I'm a single mother of seven," Bonaparte shared, "and it gives [daughter Trinity] the opportunity to continue to stay in the daycare and to continue her robotics. She really enjoys it. That'll help her keep on a positive and not get sucked into the streets ... and around people that's doing the same thing as her."
The $1,000 grant Dawkins donated to her and others, through his Brian Dawkins Impact Foundation, will help provide kids with tutoring, summer camp, art school, and other enrichments to help them thrive.
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"I really like going here and I like science," said Trinity Bonaparte. "We're doing robots, we're building a remote control, then we're going to start on the boat. And we're doing it on the water. So we'll probably get to put it in the water in the summertime. So I'm really thankful for it."
"I love football and I never met a football player in person. The only time I see football players is in the game," said 9-year-old Mason Chism, another grant recipient. "I'm going to get help and tutoring, so I can be good in school."
For Dawkins, it was all about giving parents peace of mind, "knowing that they drop their kids off and they're well taken care of and they're going to be not just watched, they're gonna be built up."
"They're going to have different things that they can do," he said, "to help them increase and grow as young people."
Learn about more programs for Philly kids on the Jawncast.