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*As previously reported, Oprah Winfrey has donated $6.5 million from her foundation toward the funding of a state-of-the-art Boys & Girls club in her native Kosciusko, Mississippi.
Sunday afternoon, she arrived at the 32,000-square-foot facility for an hour-long tour, which took place out of the presence of media cameras, then emerged to say a few words of encouragement at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
"What I have learned is you dream a big dream and you hand that dream over to a power that is greater than yourself. I call it God," Winfrey told some 400 people at the dedication. "God can dream a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself."
Winfrey also took the opportunity to thank her father, Vernon Winfrey, and her grandmother Hattie Mae Lee, who raised her in Kosciusko.
"She used to say to me she hoped I would grow up to be able to get some good white folks, like she had some good white folks," Winfrey said of her grandmother. "What I don't think she ever imagined is that I would grow up and get some good white folks working for me."
Winfrey made sure to credit her father for always stressing the importance of education.
"Had I not been sent to live with my father I would probably have five or six kids by now," she said, shortly before turning to him. "Without you my life would not have happened nor would this have happened, so thank you, Mr. Winfrey."
About 225 children are expected to attend the new Attala County facility this week.
In other Oprah news, Rosie O'Donnell jokingly blamed the talk show mogul for contributing to the unraveling of her longtime crush Tom Cruise by failing to stop him from making a fool of himself.
She tells Newsweek: "I saw him doing the couch jumping. I wasn't mad at him. I was mad at Oprah. Oprah, couldn't you have said, 'Tommy, come here! Don't jump.'"