By LOUISE EVANS

            Inspired by his dad, who always put money he didn't have into the poor box at church, Pat Rafter yesterday launched his own children's charity aimed at helping street youth get off drugs.

            As one of nine children, Rafter was horrified by newspaper pictures of children injecting drugs and said his charity's first project would be to help the Youth Off The Street program, founded by Fr Chris Riley, whom Rafter met through Davis Cup coach John Newcombe.

            To Fr Riley, Rafter's decision to help his charity has "come out of the blue".

            "Getting the money is great but we've got more here. Pat Rafter is a spokesman who can actually speak out on behalf of kids - he is young himself, he's achieved so much, he's a real celebrity and he must care for kids," he said.

            "At 24, to be getting a foundation for kids is pretty amazing stuff when a lot of other tennis players are out there buying cars."

            To try to gain a better understanding of the drug problem destroying a generation, Rafter will tour the streets of Kings Cross tonight with his older sister Louise, who will run the Patrick Rafter Cherish the Children Foundation.

            The launch of the foundation follows a quiet history of charitable acts and donations from the dual US Open tennis champion.

            After winning his first grand slam title in 1997 in New York, Rafter silently gave $500,000 from his $1.1 million winner's cheque to the Starlight Foundation to fund a leisure room for terminally ill children at the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

            When the donation was leaked by a US newspaper last year, Rafter's elder brother and manager, Steve, said Patrick was interested in following leading Australian sports stars Greg Norman and Peter Brock in setting up his own charity.

            Rafter, who lives in Bermuda to minimise tax and who has made $12 million in prizemoney alone, said there was too much money in sport and hoped setting up the charity would help lift its image.

            The world No 4 said yesterday he was taught from an early age to be generous by his parents, who were quick to help those worse off as they struggled to support a family of nine kids.

            "We got a lot of these values from mum and dad, especially my father who was big into giving," Rafter said. "We never had very much money growing up, but whenever we went to church on Sunday, Dad always put in quite a bit of money into the box and I thought: 'Wow, he hasn't got any and he is doing that'.

            "There probably is too much money in sport but there are a lot of things that we can give back, money or time, to make people happy."

            Rafter vowed his charity would benefit from a constant stream of donations from his bank balance, whether or not he was winning, and suggested other players like Mark Philippoussis might want to chip in.

            Rafter said he welcomed Philippoussis back into the Davis Cup fold and looked forward to playing with "Scud", rather than against him, at the next tie against Zimbabwe in April.