Mary J. Blige (INFevents.com)
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When superstar singer Mary J. Blige arrived at her Bronx high school, impoverished teen Gennevive Sarfoah thought her prayers had been answered.
Sarfoah and 24 other seniors who graduated from the all-girls Women’s Academy of Excellence in 2010 were promised four-year scholarships to the college of their choice.
She was accepted at SUNY Canton, where the Ghana immigrant made the dean’s list as a nursing student. But she’s also about to make another list — dropout. Blige’s charity hasn’t paid her bills.
“I feel like they stood us up,” Sarfoah said.
The problems began the very first year, when the charity barely covered the tuition with a late $5,392 payment. This year, despite desperate calls, the charity paid nothing. She had to take out a loan. If no money arrives by fall, Sarfoah says she may have to leave school.
It turns out that Blige’s scholarship program, like the rest of the deadbeat diva’s charity operation, is in shambles, leaving a trail of broken promises and dashed dreams among a group of desperate Bronx teens.
Another Bronx classmate and scholarship winner, Whitney Kuffour, who attends Penn State, was also stiffed.
“I have to get a loan for her to go to school. I’ve been calling and e-mailing them and there’s no response,” said her mother, Joyce.
In Gennevive’s case, the college is trying to help with payment deferments, and has reached out to Blige’s foundation.
“They’ve said payment’s forthcoming, payment’s forthcoming,” according to a SUNY Canton source.
Blige, who made $43 million from touring and record sales in 2008 alone, promised last week to clean up the charity’s act after a Post exposé last Sunday revealed that the foundation wasn’t paying its bills, thousands of dollars were unaccounted for, it failed to file its tax return and had no office.
The “queen of hip-hop soul” issued a statement saying, “This should have never been allowed to happen, but it did, and now we are fixing it.”
But her mea culpa included the statement that the scholarship program was “in good shape.”
Blige has bragged about the scholarships given in 2010 to high achievers in the first graduating class of 73 students at the Women’s Academy of Excellence. She told a “Today” show audience, “I sent 25 women to college.”
None of those students contacted by The Post has heard from Blige since the scandal broke, and at least two of them have gotten no scholarship money in the past year.
Blige started working with the Women’s Academy in her native Bronx in the fall of 2009.
The foundation arranged for empowerment workshops and a music program at the school, which returned the favor by awarding Blige an honorary high-school diploma.
The Grammy winner had dropped out of a Yonkers high school in the 11th grade, and later earned an equivalency diploma.
Blige’s well-documented struggles, including sexual abuse by a family friend at the age of 5 and growing up with an absentee father, have provided fodder for hits like “No More Drama.”
“Mary has been a huge inspiration for our students, as well as for this community,” Women’s Academy principal Arnette Crocker said in 2010.
Some of the smiling scholarship winners appeared in a promotional video for the foundation, thanking Blige for the money.
“I will never let you down, I promise,” said Kayla Edwards, who attended Monroe College.
Blige let down some of the high-school students, however. At a Manhattan event meant to inspire Women’s Academy students, the singer appeared only briefly.
“She came in for a minute, said she had jet lag and left right away,” said an academy teacher.
There have been problems with the scholarship program almost from the start, according to a former staffer at the Mary J. Blige and Steve Stoute Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now, known as FFAWN.
The former staffer said checks to colleges bounced, and some schools were so fed up, they required wire transfers.
“Women love Mary, and they see her as an icon,” the former staffer said. “At the end of the day, what was supposed to be happening wasn’t happening. It was heartbreaking.”
Blige started the foundation in 2007 with Stoute, a former record-company executive. Jay-Z and Jada Pinkett Smith were board members. Queen Latifah was on an honorary board.
One of the group’s first projects was the Mary J. Blige Center for Women in Yonkers with programs for single mothers, teens and unemployed women. The center is run by Westchester Jewish Community Services, which refused to disclose FFAWN’s contribution.
The foundation did not lack for funds. It tweeted during a June 17, 2010, benefit at Cipriani Wall Street, an event that included the scholarship winners: “Thus far, over $100K was raised tonight!!!!”
It was supposed to get at least $60,000 from the deadbeat diva’s signature-line perfume sales in 2010, and it took out a $250,000 loan in 2011.
Where the money went was a mystery.
“It was the most well-kept secret ever,” the former staffer said.
The charity did not file its 2010 tax return, which would have detailed its spending. The 2009 return shows it got $50,000 from Gucci, $25,000 from Jay-Z and $10,000 from Russell Simmons’ foundation.
Blige gave $25,000, even though her concert tour and record sales amounted to $43.5 million in 2008, according to Billboard.
The teens aren’t the only ones stiffed by the foundation. It failed to pay musicians who played at its 2011 benefit concert, according to a lawsuit that seeks $167,252 for wages, benefits and penalties.
Another lawsuit, filed last month by TD Bank, claims that the charity defaulted on the $250,000 loan.
And a New Jersey production company won a $23,090 judgment against the foundation earlier this year for nonpayment. Gordon Link said his company provided lighting and props for a June 2010 fashion show with designer Catherine Malandrino, which was held at the Museum of Modern Art, and the foundation paid only about half of the $40,000 bill, and did so “only under duress.”
“If you’re going to a have a charity, you should look after your charity,” Link said of Blige. “I’m hoping she’ll do more than just say she’s sorry, like make restitution.”
The company that produced the MoMA fashion show, SPEC Entertainment, said the Blige foundation still owed it $15,000.
Blige blamed the foundation staff, saying in her statement, “I didn’t have the right people in the right places doing the right things.”
Madeline Small, who had been the charity’s executive director and then a board member, did not return calls for comment. Small is a senior vice president at Sony Music.
The foundation has hired a charity consultant, a law firm specializing in nonprofits, and a forensic accountant to “get the foundation back on track, rectify outstanding issues and make good on all of FFAWN’s obligations,” Blige said in her statement.