The Yankee slugger is making a big donation to the icon’s charity, Raising Malawi, a source tells us.
“They’ve asked him for a million dollars, and I hear he’s agreed to give at least $500,000,” the source confided.
A-Rod, who denied an affair with Madonna — despite being spotted with the pop superstar around town — may have some hefty alimony and child-support payments ahead after his divorce from Cynthia Rodriguez is finalized. But he has shown great generosity in the past.
He gave $3.9 million to the University of Miami to help build a baseball stadium, and he didn’t even want his name on it. And he can certainly afford to share the wealth. The 10-year contract he signed in December grants him $275 million, with $30 mil more should he break the all-time home run record — a distinct possibility.
A-Rod’s reps wouldn’t return calls, and Raising Malawi director Philippe van den Bossche told us, “Obviously when you’re talking about donors, these are private things. I would never reveal information about any donor.”
The charity’s effort to help the African nation’s 1 million orphans and others with food, medicine and education is a desperately important one, he says.
“We’re building a girls’ school, which will bring the best resources from around the world with a specific focus on medicine, education and the law. And we don’t want a brain drain. We want to develop the leaders of Malawi, who stay in Malawi and help their country.”
Madonna is reportedly preparing to adopt a Malawian girl, having completed her adoption of Malawi-born David Banda.
Van den Bossche denied the charity, whose co-founder is Kabbalah Center head Michael Berg, would start a school with a Kabbalah-based curriculum.
He said, “It will be based on the British system” — as is taught in private schools Madonna’s children Lourdes and Rocco attend.
And every step is a partnership, like with New York starchitect Markus Dochantschi working pro bono with a Malawian architect to design the school.
“We want programs that can be copied in developing countries throughout the world,” van den Bossche told us. “Not just a celebrity one-off.”
(source)
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