Super Bowl Bound : Charity: Thanks to $750,000 in donations, Touchdown for Youth is sending nearly 700 inner-city youngsters to Sunday’s big game.

Nearly 700 young people from inner-city neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area have been awarded seats at Super Bowl XXVII and will participate in the halftime show with pop superstar Michael Jackson.

Using more than $750,000 in donations from corporations and individuals, the Touchdown for Youth organization has reserved 750 end-zone seats for kids chosen by 38 community organizations and their chaperons. They will join 2,800 other young people in the halftime festivities.

For most of the youngsters, ages 12 to 15, it will be the first time they have attended a Super Bowl game.

“I’ve never been to a football game before, but I watch the (Buffalo) Bills on TV all the time,” said Darryl Towns, 13, selected from the Challengers Boys and Girls Club in South-Central Los Angeles. Darryl said he has been a Bills fan for five years.

For some, the chance to ham it up with Jackson during the halftime performance is as big a thrill as the game itself.

“I can’t wait. . . . I’m just dying to see Michael Jackson,” said 15-year-old Donald Fruean of Carson, one of 13 young people going to the game from the Search to Involve Pilipino Americans group. “I’m one of his biggest fans.”

The young people will surround Jackson on the field as he closes his 10-minute halftime performance with “Heal the World,” the song named after the pop icon’s new charity for riot-torn areas of Los Angeles.

Rattana Samart, 12, who rehearsed for the show last weekend, says he’s got the routine down.

“They are going to have us run out (onto) the field and scream for him and shout out his name and act like we are his fans,” said Rattana, part of a Cambodian youth support group in Los Angeles.

The rest of the halftime performers were chosen by Jackson’s production company and will not have seats for the game, organizers said.

Stanford Philpot, 13, admits that he is not a big fan of Jackson’s; if it were up to him, rapper Ice Cube would be the halftime attraction. But, said the 13-year-old member of the Challengers Boys and Girls Club, “It’s all right, though . . . ‘cause we got picked for this.

“I really appreciate the club doing this for me,” added Stanford, who says he was chosen because he had been trying to improve his behavior.

The youngsters were selected either because they had been good or had been trying hard to be good.

“Some of the kids we felt needed an extra boost,” said Roy W. Roberts II, executive director of the Watts-Willowbrook Boys and Girls Club, which is sending 15 members to the game. “They needed something to show them that people are paying attention to them, to tell them that when you try, look what happens. We thought it would help them make some of the right choices.”

The youngsters will also receive clothing donated by L.A. Gear, B.U.M. Equipment, the National Football League and The Times and will be treated to brunch by A&W; Root Beer, said Sheldon Ausman, Super Bowl Host Committee chairman.