(Photo by: Clem Murray)

Jon Bon Jovi will receive the prestigious Humanitarian Marian Anderson Award on November 18th in Philadelphia for his charitable contribution to society through JBJ Soul Kitchen, Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, and beyond.

Alfred Lubrano of Philly.com offers further details: Jon Bon Jovi wrote "Runaway", the song that launched his career, in 1980 as he rode a bus in Manhattan past homeless young runaways near Covenant House, the national organization that aids unmoored youth.

"It could have been me," Bon Jovi told an audience at a fund-raiser for Covenant House Pennsylvania more than 30 years later. "But something else saved me. It was that song."

A staple of radio and the concert stage for decades, Bon Jovi, 52, is also a philanthropist who will be the 2014 recipient of Philadelphia's Marian Anderson Award at the Kimmel Center on Tuesday.

The award, whose past recipients include Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey, and Sidney Poitier, honors artists who are also humanitarians. It is named after Anderson, an African American native of Philadelphia born in 1897 who was renowned for her singing voice as well as her advocacy for civil and human rights.

Bon Jovi lives in Middletown, N.J., but spends significant time helping the homeless and impoverished in Philadelphia and Camden, among other places.

The singer's work within the region figured into the calculus of his being chosen for the award. "We wanted to single out an artist whose work is not only global, but also deeply invested here in Philadelphia," said Nina Tinari, Anderson Award board chair. "This marks the first time that we have looked at generosity to the city and region as part of our search."

These days, Bon Jovi has the freedom to give full voice to that generosity after decades of laboring in rock and roll with the Grammy Award-winning band that bears his name - a crew that has sold more than 130 million albums and played nearly 3,000 concerts in front of 37.5 million fans.

Also an actor and producer, Bon Jovi has been dedicating more of his energies in recent years to helping others. "It would have been a life unfulfilled if the 52-year-old was on the same journey that the 21-year-old had been on," Bon Jovi said in a telephone interview last week. "I just have chosen to become more and more involved."

That involvement led him to create the Center City-based Jon Bon Jovi (JBJ) Soul Foundation, established in 2006 to focus on issues of homelessness, affordable housing, and hunger, said Mimi Box, the foundation's executive director and a former chief financial officer of the Philadelphia Eagles. She also served in the same capacity for the Philadelphia Soul, the arena football team that Bon Jovi once co-owned.

"I'm by no means a Mimi Box, God bless her," said Bon Jovi, who grew up in a working-class family untouched by poverty. "But I'm certainly not sitting on the sidelines, either. Our foundation will continue to be a big part of my daily life." Read more at this location.