Children's project brings joy to Woods

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Although Tiger Woods has important business on his hands in this week's U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, the core of his life's work continues to unfold 130 kms to the north-west.

The state-of-the-art Tiger Woods Learning Center in Anaheim, California, has become a haven where children can develop life skills, getting to grips with subjects as diverse as forensic science, robotics, business entrepreneurship and rocket design.

Around 23,000 students, ranging in age from 10 to 18, have gone through the center since it opened in February 2006, most of them attending a day program for elementary schoolchildren or an after-school program for those at junior and senior high.

Roughly 85 percent of the students are Hispanic and they can also participate in community outreach programs and college access seminars.

While Woods's drive to become the greatest golfer of all time is well documented, his passion for the success of the Learning Center and the Tiger Woods Foundation he created with his father Earl is on a much higher plane.

"Golf has always been a vehicle so I could touch others and help kids and make sure that they get to feel and experience the things that I've had in my life," the American world number one told Reuters.

TURNED AROUND

"The joy I get from winning a major championship doesn't even compare to the feeling I get when a kid writes a letter saying: 'Thank you so much. You have changed my life.'

"Or: 'I have turned my life around because of you. I was in a gang and now I'm not in a gang and now I'm going to college. No one in my family has ever gone to a college and now I'm the first one to do it.' That, to me, is what it's all about."

Since turning professional in 1996, Woods has frequently paid tribute to his mother Kultida and late father Earl for raising him in a loving and secure home.

With that as his inspiration, he has endeavored to provide a similar experience for the children at his Learning Center.

"I've had mentors in my life, I've had people take an interest in me when I could have easily gone down the wrong path," said Woods, who plans to open a second Learning Center in the Washington D.C. area within the next five years.

"The love that I had from my parents allowed me to go ahead and be more aggressive, to search and to take risks knowing, if I failed, I could always come home to a family of love and support.

"Not all kids have that. At the Learning Center, we want them to feel like they are part of a family, that they can learn and grow and make a step in the right direction."

EMOTIONAL THING

Katherine Bihr, executive director of the center, relishes her part in helping to shape young lives.

"It's the best thing I've done in my life for sure," she told Reuters.

"It's an emotional thing for me because I really think there are so many opportunities for kids and they just don't have the options to find out how to get from point A to point B. It's not fair.

"There is a system here that feeds the 'haves' and then there are the 'have-nots' and there is no reason why education shouldn't be for everybody. That's why I got into education. I wanted to help kids.

"Here at the Learning Center, it matters that they understand that there are people who will care about them, care about their future and want to see them be successful."

Children wanting to attend the center simply have to write a personal statement describing their motivation and their college and career goals. Bihr received a particularly poignant letter from a 15-year-old boy.

"He ended up in the bio-technology program and his reason for being in it was because he had, he has, cystic fibrosis and he wanted to find a cure," she said. "That was really striking for me.

"He wanted to become a doctor to find a cure for himself and also for others. He was already thinking about what he wanted to be but he really never had the opportunity to try it out and do some things. He was exceptionally gifted."

(Editing by Clare Fallon)