Since 2001, Future Foundation has served the area’s underprivileged youth via support programs in math, health and fitness, coupled with various cultural enhancement courses. Growing up in southwest Atlanta, Abdur-Rahim says his caring parents and his involvement with community organizations set him on the path to college at the University of California, Berkeley and then on to a successful NBA career.
“[My parents] were givers and community people and I think I’m just a by-product of that,” says Abdur-Rahim. “[I was taught that] if I’ve got $10 and you don’t have any dollars, the thing to do is give you a dollar or two. If I have a big plate of food and you don’t have any food, I should share my food with you. I just think that’s the right thing to do, the natural thing to do, the correct thing to do.”
Since being sidelined for a knee injury he suffered this past November, Adbur-Rahim’s humanitarian fortitude recently brought him praise from the Trumpet Awards Foundation where he was honored with the Usher Raymond Altruism Award at the 2008 awards ceremony.
Though he’s expected to return to the lineup and join his team in the competitive Western Conference, Abdur-Rahim is content with being known more for his work off the court than on it. “All of us are a product of somebody helping us, somebody giving to us” he says. “At the end of the day if all I did was play basketball in my lifetime, I [would] think I did a poor job of living.”
