Okay, in my opinion this guy is definitely a celebrity role model.

One day in March of 1998, at 425 pounds, Jared walked by a Subway food chain and decided to buy a sub with less than 6 grams of fat. It was a turkey with no cheese or mayo. That night, he ate a foot-long veggie with no cheese or mayo. He probably didn’t realize then that those two sandwiches would change his life.

A little less than a year later, Jared was down to about 190 pounds and had incorporated walking as much as possible into his daily routine.

Jared lost more pounds than he now weighs, learned to eat low fat and add exercise to his life, and gained a bit of notoriety in the process. AND - after 10 years he has still kept it all off!

Hmmm…I think there’s a Subway not far from here…

Jared Fogle, shown here with baseball-playing brothers, Jeremy and Jason Giambi.

Photo Courtesy of PR Newswire Photos

Today is America’s 24th birthday, and we wish only the happiest day for this charitable celeb.

Known for her title role on Ugly Betty, which is scheduled to return to television April 24th, she is perhaps more well-known for her voluptuous curves. Some of her films include Lords of Dogtown and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

America, who was born to Honduran parents, is also very active in supporting a variety of charitable causes. Her latest endeavor (as announced by Usmagazine.com) will be hosting the 3rd annual Hot in Hollywood event this August. The event, which is being held at the Avalon this year, will benefit the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Real Medicine. These two great organizations put a lot of work into spreading education about AIDS and HIV, and include helps with testing and treatment options as well.

We last reported about American in October of 2007, when she won the “Latin Leader” award by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute for her role model behavior.

Happy Birthday, America!

Photo via Amazon.com

Charitable celeb Mariah has another good reason to flash her beautiful smile. Sales of her new album, E=MC2, have been so good since its release on Tuesday that she is expected to take the #1 spot in next week’s U.S. pop album chart. Using information about sales from nine different chains, including Best Buy, Circuit City, Starbucks and iTunes, a tracking firm estimates total sales of the album for the week. The nine chains are said to represent about 80% of the entire retail market in the United States.

Mariah has a long history of working for and supporting a variety of charitable organizations, including Live 8, United Negro College Fund, Elton John AIDS Foundation and the Fresh Air Fund. The Fresh Air Fund has also named their Career Awareness Program “Camp Mariah,” in recognition of her support as a board member and to the 300 boys and girls that attend each the four-week summer camp. She also has a history of auctioning off her clothes for charity.

If her last album is any indication, Mariah’s new release should do very well with music-lovers. The Emancipation of Mimi sold more than 400,000 copies during its first week, and ended up debuting in the #1 slot on the Billboard 200.

The final numbers for E=MC2 are expected to be released next Wednesday.

Image via Amazon.com

Dame Anita Roddick, Founder of the upscale beauty company The Body Shop, showed her love of helping others when she chose charity over family in the months before her death. Her family, husband Gordon and daughters Justine and Sam, has just learned of the news after her Will was released this week.

Anita, who died at age 64 unexpectedly last September due to a brain hemorrhage, founded The Body Shop in 1976 and amassed a fortune estimated at $212m when the Roddicks sold the business to beauty giant L’Oreal in 2006. Even prior to the sale, Anita was well-known for her donations to various causes, organizations and Third World countries. This included spreading the word about Hepatitis C, which she contracted in 1971 during a blood transfusion while giving birth to one of her daughters.

Toward the end of her life, she had been quoted as saying to leave any money to her children would be “obscene” and that she had no intention of dying rich. She apparently kept her word.

Her Will revealed that her $108m fortune was donated to charitable causes prior to her death, leaving approximately $1.5m - which was eaten up by Britain’s inheritance tax.

Apparently at least one of her daughters was relieved and supportive upon hearing the news that she was disinherited from the Will. No matter - the daughters still stand to inherit their father’s half of the fortune.

Photo Use via Creative Commons

For his efforts in helping “green go mainstream,” TheDailyGreen.com has named Leonardo DiCaprio one of eighteen recipients of The Heart of Green Awards. The awards have been offered in honor of Earth Day and are partly given in celebration of the site’s first anniversary. The “Heart of Green” recognizes people (and organizations) who have accomplished and dared to endeavor what Mother Nature is sure to be proud of.

Leonardo received the award for his work producing, co-writing and narrating The 11th Hour, a recently released DVD that further explores the plight of the Earth as a result of global warming and the human footprint. The film is a documentary set at a much different pace than Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and combines beautiful scenery with shocking statistics. What makes this film more outstanding is that is also spends considerable time discussing solutions to the problems humans have created.

I checked out The 11th Hour on both the film’s site and on Amazon.com, and was even more impressed to learn that the not only is the DVD priced at a very-affordable $4.99, but its packaging is made with 100% certified renewable resources. If that weren’t enough, a portion of the profits are being donated to Global Green!

Check out the rest of the Heart of Green winners on The Daily Green.

Learn a bit more about The 11th Hour.

Leonardo DiCaprio Photo
Buy at AllPosters.com

A historic race for charity will be taking place in Long Beach, California this upcoming weekend, and Drew Lachey has been named one of the top three drivers expected to win. Drew, winner from the second season of Dancing with the Stars, also shares his 4-1 odds of winning with NASCAR reporter Jamie Little and NASCAR driver Mike Skinner.

The 2008 Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, which will be running this weekend in conjunction with the 34th annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, runs through almost 2 miles of downtown Long Beach streets. Among the racers are a combination of stars from movies, television and sports. The celebrities will get a 30-second head start over the racing professionals, and apparently Drew did so well in practice last week that he is now one of the three favored to win.

For their part in this, Toyota will be donating $5,000 on behalf of each celebrity driver to “Racing for Kids,” a non-profit that benefits children’s hospitals in Orange County, California. Toyota will additionally donate $5,000 to the winning racer’s charity of choice. Since 1991, Toyota claims to have donated more than $1.5 million to children’s organizations.

Some drivers are taking this prestigious race quite seriously. Sarena Traver - a fine jewelry designer with Grand Am driving experience - reportedly paid $80,000 at a Boys and Girls Club charity auction earlier this year, just for a seat to compete in Saturday’s race. Now that’s giving.

Outspoken television and radio commentator Dennis Miller is putting on a new hat. No stranger to charity, Dennis has recently announced his new role as spokesman for USA Cares, an organization that helps military families in times of financial need.

Even before the official word was given on his nationally syndicated radio show, he started bringing in money for soldiers and their immediate family. A brief rant on “The O’Reilly Factor” brought in more than $25,000 in donations to the charity and 45,000 hits to its website.

Let’s face it, the economy is in a slump. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of financial help than those serving our Country. So, if you’d like to join Dennis in his effort to help our servicemen and women, visit USA Cares for more information.

Photo via Flickr

Quite frankly, I didn’t know much abut Nnamdi Asomugha until I read about him recently in The Sporting News.  I knew he made the NFL Pro-Bowl both years he’s been in the league, but since he plays in the NFL’s version of Siberia- the Oakland Raiders - I hadn’t seen him play.

He’s one of the good guys.  His family came to the States from Nigeria in the 1970’s and attended school in Texas - his mother is a medical doctor and his father was a petroleum engineer, both graduating from UT Austin.  He himself is the least educated member of his family with only a bachelor’s degree from Cal.

His mother founded a foundation in 1974, the Orphans and Widows in Need Foundation, which provides food, shelter, medicine and vocational training to widows and orphans around the world, with a focus on Africa.  Nnamdi is his mother’s foundation’s biggest benefactor.

Recently the Children Uniting Nations presented its annual Angel award to Asomugha for his work with OWIN.  And in his spare time he mentors underprivileged children in the Oakland area.  Maybe he can mentor some of the knuckleheads in the No-Fun League.

Now that Marion Jones, Olympic Gold Medalist liar and convicted felon, is serving her sentence for perjury and fraud, we need to point out a role model in all of this professional athlete steroid using mess.  Remember this name:  Kelli White.  Repeat after me: Kelli White.  She’s the person we should be talking to our kids about.  While Ms. Jones was lying and going on the offensive [same tactics being used by Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens], Kelli told the truth.  She fessed up to her steroid usage and paid the professional penalty.  She was banned from competing for two years.

In the meantime, she worked for the other side.  She spoke out against performance enhancing drugs.  She talked to kids.  She went back to school and got her MBA in Marketing.

She made a mistake.  She told the truth.  She got on with her life.   A lesson for all of us.

Read more by Mark Fainaru-Wade on ESPN.com

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/trackandfield/columns/story?columnist=fainaru_wada_mark&id=3280162&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab7pos1

The subject of cancer research is a special one for Bon Jovi rocker Richie Sambora. He lost his father to cancer last year. It only makes sense then the band headlined a concert last night for Stand Up for a Cure, an organization geared towards finding curing cancer. Funds raised are going to Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center where Richies father was treated.