Queen Latifah provides scholarship for low-income students

Perhaps people don't normally think of hip hop artists as individuals they'd ask for a scholarship application. However, 42-year-old rapper and actress Queen Latifah has established a scholarship fund in honor of her brother, Lancelot Jr. Owens, reports Variety. Latifah's elder sibling tragically died during a motorcycle accident in 1992. Later that year, Rita L. Owens, mother of Lancelot Jr. and Latifah, founded the Lancelot H. Owens Scholarship Foundation (LOSF).

"My Mom is an educator - a teacher - and she wanted create something positive out of that negative situation," Queen Latifah said to the news source. "My brother would have been going to college. You couldn't live in my house and not go to college."

The LOSF mostly awards financial aid for college to students from low-income neighborhoods in the tri-state New York region. Prospective candidates are required to do volunteer work in their communities.

Many celebrities have created college scholarship opportunities, or have had scholarship programs established in their honor. FastWeb lists Jerry Seinfeld, Alicia Keys, Michael Jordan, Christopher Reeve and Michael Jackson as a handful of examples.

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