Keanu Reeves is known for being one of the nicer movie stars around, generously donating to charity out of the kindness of his heart, rather than because it’s a career PR boost.
But the extent of Keanu’s generosity may well surprise you as it turns out he’s been funding children’s hospitals on the quiet for years. Good on you, Keanu.
Yep, the star of The Matrix and John Wick runs a private charitable foundation that looks to help positive endeavours like cancer research and kids’ hospital wards. And yet he’s hardly told anyone. Y’know, not because it’s something to brag about or anything.
“I have a private foundation that’s been running for five or six years, and it helps aid a couple of children’s hospitals and cancer research,” Keanu said in a Ladies Home Journal article from 2009, according to Snopes.
“I don’t like to attach my name to it, I just let the foundation do what it does.”
Keanu has a powerful personal reason to want to help people with cancer – his sister Kim was diagnosed with leukaemia in the 1990s before it thankfully went into remission – but it’s amazing that he hasn’t told anyone about.
Word is that he’s even found to sit down and take calls from the public during charity telethons to help raise funds to beat the disease. What a guy.
“Public efforts found him manning the phones at a Stand Up to Cancer telethon in 2008,” the List wrote. “Stars like Reeves generously gave their time and used their star power to encourage fans to become callers, donors and participants in the efforts to heal cancer.”
Cancer research is an expensive thing to fund, so for Keanu to lend his fame to raise awareness of the cause (rather than shooting bad movies for money he doesn’t need) is a pretty generous thing.
Amazingly, Reeves donates to other charities too, such as SCORE (Spinal Cord Opportunities for Rehabilitation Endowment), a charity founded in support of hockey players with spinal injuries.
According to the List, Reeves was even seen in net at a fundraiser for the charity, acting out his childhood dream of playing pro hockey – he wasn’t called ‘The Wall’ in high school for nothing.
Other generous things that Keanu has done include buying his mum a house, buying Harley Davidsons for stunt crews on The Matrix, and taking pay cuts so that films could hire other actors, as he did for Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate.
But if you needed another reason to love Keanu, then here it is.
Last month it was revealed that the action star has also landed a part in the upcoming Toy Story 4 movie.
Speaking on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Tim Allen – Buzz Lightyear to you and me – said: “New guys are in it. Keanu Reeves has got a great part in it. Inside story, even the fun, gentle guy that he is, even he said, ‘This sounds too much like Buzz Lightyear’.
“And his character does have an edge to that.”
Simply put, Keanu Reeves is one of the best guys in Hollywood. Long may it continue!
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