After standing on the steps of city hall with Jay-Z, P. Diddy and many others, Russell Simmons is reaching his long arm to assist those under New York’s stiff Drug laws. Joining forces with STRIVE, an international non-profit employment, training and job placement organization, Russell Simmons and his company Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation will be creating scholarships for men and women who were incarcerated through the Rockefeller Drug Laws.
The scholarship titled The Simmons Brothers Art Scholarship will be available to anyone who is interested in learning the arts (be it music, television or teaching). The scholarship honor’s Russell Simmons older brother Danny who served eighteen months prison over twenty nine years ago for signing someone into his college dorm who was later caught buying drugs. The scholarship will be available beginning in 2004 one person a year will be selected to attend any CUNY school for four years. STRIVE helps ex-offenders who are required by the courts to find a job and maintain it.
