Sean Kingston, the “Beautiful Girls” hitmaker and co-star with Justin Bieber on the more recent “Eenie Meanie” single, is starting his own foundation.

“We’re actually creating the name as we speak right now,” the 20-year-old told Samaritanmag. “Basically, I’m going to me sending computers — lap tops — to kids in school right now in Jamaica. In Jamaica, the schools are kind of messed up. I plan to rebuild a lot of different schools and put in computers. We’re working it out right now.”

Kingston, who was born in America and spent his early childhood in Jamaica, had a fairly tough upbringing. He was sent to jail for 21 days at age 11 for breaking and entering and a few years later his mother and sister were incarcerated in Florida for identity fraud.

BY KAREN BLISS

Finger Eleven has supported numerous causes over the rock band’s lengthy career but guitarist Rick Jackett’s personal choice is Autism Speaks Canada, for which he participates in Walk Now For Autism in Toronto. He has a young niece and nephew with the lifelong neurobiological disorder.

“One’s a severe case where she hasn’t spoken,” Jackett told Samaritanmag. “It’s definitely affected my family. People with autistic children have a much different life and a much harder challenge ahead of them because it’s not a disease that you can cure. They don’t even know what it is yet. They don’t know what causes it; they don’t know how to prevent it.  And you can’t see signs of it usually until they’re two or three years old because there’s no difference in physical appearance.”

According to the statistics listed on www.autismspeaks.ca, one out of every 110 children will be diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, four times as many boys than girls (one in 70); autism is more prevalent than pediatric cancer, AIDS and diabetes combined and can cost $80,000 to $100,000 a year to treat a person. 

By Karen Bliss

Gym Class Heroes vocalist Travie McCoy, who shot a documentary and released a charity single last year for MTV Networks International’s Staying Alive Foundation, plans to continue bringing attention to the global prevention of HIV and AIDS.

“They actually made me ambassador of Staying Alive so I’m proud to carry that title,” McCoy tells Samartanmag. “I’m sure they will be other projects we’ll have in the future.”

The Foundation (www.stayingalivefoundation.org) provides grants to youth-led initiatives committed to educating their peers, fighting stigma and discrimination, and empowering other young people to protect themselves against the disease.

“I went to South Africa, the Philippines and India with Staying Alive,” says McCoy of the whirlwind 10-day trip last June. “I got to meet some young grantees who are given money every year to fund their grassroots program that they’re doing in their communities to help raise awareness and education in their communities — and they’re young people too.

By Karen Bliss

The CD booklet inside Canadian indie pop-rock band The New Pornographer’s latest album, Together, has a message “in memory of Lynn Calder — please contribute to the ALS Society of Canada.”

Lynn is singer-keyboardist Kathryn Calder’s mother and the half-sister of the band’s founder and main songwriter, Carl Newman (a.k.a. A.C. Newman).

“My mom died of ALS last year so I’ve donated lots of money,” Calder tells Samaritanmag.

ALS stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal progressive neurodegenerative disorder, which causes paralysis due to degeneration of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord.  In North America, it is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

By Karen Bliss

Musician Ben Harper is calling attention to one of his number one charities, Living Lands & Water (www.livinglandsandwaters.org), dedicated to cleaning up and preserving America’s rivers.

“It’s run by a gentleman named Chad Pregracke and his life devotion is to cleaning up rivers,” Harper told Samaritanmag.com. “He built his own barge and he travels around [..] and goes up and down rivers and cleans them up by hand. He’s built his own crane, his own barge, and he is a true revolutionary and a true hero.”

In the bio area of the Living Lands & Waters web site, it reads that Pregracke founded the not-for-profit organization in 1998 at age 23 out of East Moline, Illinois. The charity now operates with 10 full-time staff and has four barges, a towboat, six workboats, two skid steers, five work trucks and a large box truck.

“With this equipment, the crew is able to travel and work in an average of nine states a year along the Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, and Potomac Rivers, as well as many of their tributaries.  Since the project’s inception, Chad, his crew, and over 60,000 volunteers have collected over six million pounds of debris from our nation’s greatest rivers.

“A big deal in my family is that we’ve always learned about giving back. My mom always wanted me to know that even though we weren’t as fortunate as we are now that giving back was always very important. As much as you could do really meant a lot. So now that I have this platform that I’m able to have my voice be heard, I still have that same mentality, but I’m able to share that and educate my fans and encourage my fans to help as well. It’s all about the simple things. Your voice is the most powerful tool you have so being able to spread the word about organizations and wanting to get involved. It’s all about going online and trying to find places around your community, just about the lesson, I think.” — Selena Gomez tells Samaritanmag.com

Seventeen-year-old Gomez is UNICEF’s youngest ambassador and traveled in September 2009 to Ghana to see first-hand how many of the country’s children lack the necessities we all take for granted — clean water, nutritious food, education and healthcare. Best known for her role as Alex Russo on Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place, Gomez is currently promoting her debut album, Kiss & Tell. She has 3.3 million Facebook fans (second only to Lady Gaga in the top 40 pop world) and more than 1.4 million Twitter followers. That’s a lot of fans to teach about giving back.