In the 2010-2011 academic year, Nick’s Kids, a charitable fund for children established by UA head football coach Nick Saban and his wife, Terry, gave $8,000 to the Brewer Porch Children’s Center. The center was established in 1970 by the Alabama legislature to provide a model treatment program for Alabama’s special needs children and adolescents, and their families.

Since coming to Alabama in 2007, the Sabans have distributed more than $1 million to over 150 charities, with a total of $23,000 going exclusively to the Brewer-Porch facility through the Nick’s Kids Fund. The Sabans started the fund at Michigan State University and have maintained the charity throughout Saban’s football career.

James Thompson, executive director of the Brewer-Porch Children’s Center, says the funds allow the center to purchase “extras” for special needs kids–toys, games, and Promethean interactive whiteboards, a specialized computerized teaching screen that is costly, but vital to the education of the nearly 170 students served each day at Brewer-Porch.