Troy Vincent discovered that all the monetary donations in the world weren't going to enable him to achieve what he wanted to be more than anything else: a difference-maker.

Heaven knows Vincent and his wife, Tommi, tried. They once donated $61,000 to equip the weight room at Central High School in Trenton, N.J., the city in which they were raised, met and married. In 2001, they gave $150,000 to the Trenton Recreation Department.

And those are just a couple of the biggies.

They made the couple feel good, useful even. But they didn't make them feel essential, which is what this intensely spiritual couple believes is their calling.

"We should have been doing more," Vincent said after a recent practice with the Washington Redskins, the team that signed the 35-year-old safety in October. "We both felt that there was more to us than volunteering and cutting a check. We needed to get 'dirtier,' my wife said. I knew it was the will of God for my life. It was my purpose for what I call that 'season,' so we went on our own."

The result: the Vincent's Love Thy Neighbor Community Development and Opportunity Corporation, an array of social and economic programs they founded and preside over. Both Troy and Tommi have a hands-on role in the organization, Troy around his football duties and Tommi on an almost daily basis.

"The foundation is one of love," said Rodell Hageman, the program's top administrative aide. "We are truly not for profit. We are people with a true desire to uplift our community. Everything we do is born from the heart."

Assisted by more than 200 volunteers, Love Thy Neighbor teaches inner-city residents of Trenton everything from reading and writing to how to compile a financial portfolio. Its programs help young fathers just out of prison reconnect with their families. It provides college and career opportunities for young women who have gone on to become nurses, engineers, and teachers.

It unearths summer jobs for kids and helps high school athletes improve their SAT scores with prep courses and test-taking techniques.

Vincent's program is color-blind. Although blacks are most impacted by the organization, Hispanics, Latinos, Mexicans and whites all have benefited.

"His program offers people a hand up, not a handout," said Trenton Mayor Douglas H. Palmer. "Troy's success has encouraged other programs that otherwise might not be here. It has had a snowball effect to have a better community."

It began 14 years ago as the Troy Vincent Foundation, a title that made Vincent feeling uncomfortable and overly prideful . Vincent, who studied Urban and Regional Planning at Wisconsin, has taken great pains not to be perceived as a shining knight who occasionally rides into his hometown carrying a few feel-good ideas.

"My office is in the Wilbur section of the city, the neighborhood where I was raised," Vincent said. "Most people see me as someone who grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, whether because of my conversation or the way I carry myself. That's far from true. I never left this community. "

Vincent, who began his career as a cornerback with the Miami Dolphins, has 47 interceptions in 203 career games and played in the Pro Bowl from 1999-2003. But his impact is best measured by things other than statistics.

He has a reputation as a mentor/father/confessor for younger players. In Philadelphia, he helped groom Bobby Taylor, Brian Dawkins and Lito Sheppard. After suffering a hamstring injury earlier this season in Buffalo, Vincent began helping coach the Bills' young secondary.

One reason Redskins coach Joe Gibbs wanted to add Vincent after he was released by the Bills was the positive impact he envisioned him having on young defenders Sean Taylor and Carlos Rogers.

Vincent, who is in his second term as president of the NFL Players Association, started a Pop Warner football program in Trenton this year. After games, folks passing the field saw a man picking up trash and figured a maintenance worker had been hired.

"We didn't hire any janitors," Hageman said, chuckling. "It was Troy out there."

Across the street from his old house is Jefferson Vincent Park, restored and maintained by the Vincents and named after Troy's grandfather. He was a primary reason Troy didn't end up like so many of his friends, involved with drugs, guns and gangs.

"We had drugs in our household, and we had violence," he said. "If you grew up in Wilbur section, you were the worst of the worst. You were considered scum of the earth.

"My dad left us when I was 18 months old. My grandparents worked. My mother worked three jobs. But I was always told that my life was a choice I could make, that every decision came with a consequence. And, in truth, I feared my mom and grandma and grandpa far more than I feared law enforcement."

Vincent said some of the kids touched by Love Thy Neighbor today are the children of "gang lieutenants" he grew up with. Most don't resent his efforts or consider him a meddler, Vincent said, because they're scared their kids will wind up like them, even if the kids don't want to.

"Troy's program steers the kids in a good direction as far as being productive and not being caught out in the streets," said Baltimore Ravens linebacker Gary Stills, another Trenton native who has begun contributing to Love Thy Neighbor. "I've seen a lot of my friends fall to gang violence. Some of them resort to death, some resort to jail time, and it catches guys at a very early age."

As his community's problems change, so do the programs Love Thy Neighbor offers. For example, originally, Vincent focused on teaching home-ownership skills, figuring people who owned homes were more likely to improve their neighborhoods and create a safer environment for their children. But he discovered that many of the people he sought to reach were so poorly educated that waiting until they were adults was akin to tossing a thimble of water on a fire after it had become an inferno.

So several years ago, the Seed, Feed and Grow program was created in conjunction with the Trenton Board of Education and the mayor's office. During the school day, volunteers whose backgrounds have been screened join Vincent in entering elementary schools and, with supervision from teachers and guidance counselors, work with kids on reading and writing.

"We can take a young child and as long as we stay with them throughout their youth, we can build them up and grow them," Vincent said. "We've dealt with third- and fourth-graders who can't pronounce the word 'and,' who can't add 2 plus 2 or multiply 2 times 3. We have to back up and address these essential needs, because we can't be effective in the community until we improve there."

With so many single-parent households and so many teens expected to care for younger brothers and sisters, Vincent teamed with the Red Cross to bring CPR and first-aid training to 11th-graders and basic first-aid classes to third-, fourth-and fifth-graders.

"It's not rocket science," Vincent said, "but these are life skills that have nothing to do with economic status or social ills."

Vincent has discovered that he and his volunteers often provide the vital emotional connection lacking between many of today's parents and their children and which encourages kids to succeed.

"No one's telling that child 'Great job, Tony!' or 'Jessica, where did you learn to draw?' " Vincent said. "These kids just want somebody to stroke them a little. It's the touch and feel and sound of love. When our volunteers walk in and pick up that kid, their eyes light up. 'She's here!' And they're telling you everything that went on at home, the good and the bad."

Should the "bad" become inhumane or illegal, the proper authorities are alerted. Everyone enters the program with a folder detailing their background, so potential trouble can be more easily identified.

Vincent doesn't claim to have all of the answers, though he "would bring this to Norfolk or Leesburg or Ashburn without hesitation."

Palmer believes that's understating the significance of what his friend has accomplished.

"Absolutely, this is a blueprint for inner-city America," the mayor proclaimed. "It is a critical component of hope for adults and children.

"No government is capable of doing all of these things. Troy gets that. He gets that citizens have to become involved in making their community better. He is a remarkable individual, and Trenton is blessed to know him."