Rapper Ludacris (Christoper Bridges) gives away cars to contest winners

[celeb_2006]

(nice gesture, but write an essay? so now the economic problems has become a contest?)

Rapper Ludacris gives away cars to contest winners - Yahoo! News



MORROW, Ga. – Talk about a one-man stimulus package: Grammy-winning rapper Ludacris has given away 20 cars to people who wrote about their struggles to keep their jobs for a lack of wheels of their own.
Ludacris said he was taken aback after reading thousands of essays by people struggling or unable to buy cars needed to get to and from work or find jobs. The 31-year-old rapper felt he could step in and move them ahead, partnering with a suburban Atlanta dealership for Sunday's giveaway.
"People are getting laid off, and now are looking for jobs," Ludacris said. "To be efficient, you need some transportation of your own to get there. That's why I wanted to give back to those who need it."
Each of the used vehicles included free gas for 30 days. Winning contestants were responsible for tags, registration, tax and insurance. About 4,000 contestants submitted a 300-word essay to the rapper's foundation, explaining why they deserved a car.
One of the most touching stories Ludacris read was by Mading Duor.
Duor described how he moved to the United States six years ago after his mother, father, and five brothers and sisters were killed in Sudan. The man also wrote that a son was killed by a drunken driver in Atlanta a few years back.
"His story touched my heart," Ludacris said. "He's endured so much in his life and he's still here standing. I'm very proud to have helped him."
Duor, 33, has been able to keep a steady job at a school, but each day he felt stressed about how he was going to get to work. No longer.
"I'm so happy, that I'm nervous," said Duor, who won a Nissan Maxima. "When I look at my new car, I say to myself, 'Is this really happening?'"
Crystal Beauford, a single mother who used to ride the bus to two jobs and school, now has a Saturn Ion. The 26-year-old college student doesn't know how to drive the stick-shift vehicle, but said she'll learn.
"This is going to help me out so much," Beauford said. "It's a blessing."
Ludacris won Grammys for Best Rap Album for "Release Therapy" and Best Rap Song for "Money Maker."

[Quazar]

Good for him! He probably won't even miss the money and to the people who got the cars, it means everything in the world.

[*DIVA!]

Very nice of him?

[Cali]

This is so cool for him to do. Here's another article:
Ludacris, dealership give away 20 cars to drivers in need

Jobless for nearly a year, Michael Rivers was about to walk out of his house a few weeks ago to catch the bus for another daylong employment hunt when a radio announcement stopped him.

With Ludacris at her side, single mom Joya Montgomery, 26, proudly displays keys to her car Sunday.

"This is Ludacris, and I'm giving away 20 free cars..."

The famous rapper was pulling an Oprah in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia.

The rapper announced that if listeners were able to pay the taxes, registration, tags and insurance, they should go to his nonprofit Ludacris Foundation Web site and write 300 words about why they deserved new wheels.

"And make it good," Luda warned.

Four thousand people took him up on his challenge, and in a few days, more than 2,000 essays poured into the Nissan South dealership in Morrow, Georgia, that had teamed with the rapper on the used-car giveaway.

Rivers' essay was among them.

"I didn't even wait; I just continued out that door to the community center, sat at a computer and let all my emotions come out," he said.

Rivers described riding the city bus with his 14-year-old daughter to make sure she arrived safely at school and how he recently celebrated the small victory of getting his 17-year-old autistic son, who can't tolerate crowds, to stand calmly for a few moments outside the bus stop. He doesn't live near a grocery store so he has to bring home the food he can carry on the bus.

Rivers was laid off from his job as a court clerk in the summer of 2008, and making job interviews on time isn't easy when the bus is often late.

But on Sunday afternoon, Rivers was giddy, slightly bouncing as he spoke. He stood shoulder to shoulder among the 20 winners and their friends and families waiting to see their cars.

"I don't care what it is," Rivers said. "I'm grateful for any car with four wheels because it beats two heels."

Winners received 30 days of free gas, which will be a big help to Joya Montgomery, a 26-year-old single parent of a 4-year-old, 8-year-old and 3-month-old.

She has been waking before 5 a.m. and walking to the bus stop, while it's dark, with her children to begin a long journey to her job and to drop them off at school or a friend's home.

"It was scary at times," she said. "You don't even know who's out there. I was always looking over my shoulder.

"I just can't believe I won. I'm real happy."

In the parking lot, the crowd was dancing. But the bass of Ludacris' latest single blasting from the dealership's loudspeakers was secondary inspiration for one Atlanta grandmother. Fifty-one-year-old Vermelle Jackson was so excited to have a 2005 Mercury Sable to drive around grandchildren, nieces and nephews that she swiveled her hips around and dipped it shockingly low to the ground.

"Lord Jesus. ... He brought this car to me, baby!" she shouted, arms raised. "This is God's work!"

Actually, the giveaway idea came from Chris White, the jovial, hand-shaking manager of Nissan South. "I knew someone who knew someone who knew Luda and, you know, we just made it happen," White said.

At the end of the year, the cars given away under the Luda program, which were not technically acquired during the Clunkers program, may be eligible as charity tax write-offs.

"We like to think of it as not being about the write-offs," White said. "It's more like we had a chance to do something positive in the community that is going through a really hard time right now."

White helped place a few radio spots and within two days, more than 2,000 essays had been sent in. That number quickly shot to close to 4,000.

Ludacris and his mother, Roberta Shields, who directs his foundation and helped give away the cars Sunday, and the rapper's foundation staff of about a dozen helped read the essays. To validate the stories they found most compelling, they made phone calls and interviewed people who knew the finalists.

"We ended up calling a homeless shelter to reach one gentleman whose cell phone had gone out, and he was recharging it," Shields said. "We didn't know if we'd get ahold of him, but we finally did. All he wanted was a car to help him go out for job interviews."

Ludacris was particularly moved by the story of a Sudanese refugee who has experienced every hardship imaginable, the least of which was a broken-down car. The two sat down Sunday and had a long talk.

"That's one of those stories that really had me like, man, I thought I had faced some adversities in life," the rapper said in a quiet moment away from the crowd. "But I've not faced adversities at all compared to what he's been through. I cannot imagine going through what he's gone through and still be that strong."

Mading Duor, who escaped civil war and was providing for his four children on a school maintenance worker's salary, was crossing a street in Decatur, Georgia, when a driver ignored a crosswalk and hit and killed his 4-year-old son.

Karen McCrea, who attends church with Duor, wrote the winning essay.

"I don't expect anyone to understand [what I have been through], but I know that people come to me with a good heart now," he said. "I couldn't believe it when she called me to tell me. I said, 'You are kidding! It cannot be!' "

Neither McCrea, from Atlanta's affluent Buckhead area, nor Duor, neatly dressed in a shirt buttoned to the collar, seemed like Ludacris' demographic. They nodded their heads to his music anyway, smiling.

"Oh, I know his music, I know it, yes," Duor said. "I will play it [in my car."
Rapper Ludacris, dealership give away 20 cars to drivers in need - CNN.com

[msdeb]

i have always liked this guy. i say good for him.