In the summer of 2018, LeBron James joined the Los Angeles Lakers. Then, he set up a charity school in his hometown of Akron , and took out eight benefits for the children:
free tuition, free school uniforms, free bicycles and helmets, free transportation within 2 miles, free breakfast, lunch and snacks, food relief station for students' families, general education and work placement for students' parents, and tuition fees for each student who enters Akron University after graduation.
On July 30, 2018, the hometown of James Foundation School was unveiled. Pictures in this article Visual China
Before the transfer, James had already announced that he had replaced his social media avatar and background image with images full of Akron elements, but among the many images, there was no Knight element.
visual image has been replaced, James added a passage: "I will always be Akron's child."
If it is for the image, James Ben does not need to do this. After bringing a championship to Cleveland , the worst city in American professional sports history in 2016, James' image is perfect enough, as he repeatedly emphasized: "I have nothing to prove."
But this is just on the court.
Kobe immediately announced after retiring: "If my greatest achievement in my life is still basketball in 20 years, it would be a complete failure."
It is obvious that as a basketball player, James has reached the peak of this sport, and he tried to expand his achievements beyond basketball and took longer than too many people.
As early as 2005, when James was still making a rookie contract, he established the "LeBron James Family Foundation". The charitable organizations donated by this foundation are:
Boys and Girls Clubs of America, After-School All-Stars, the Children’s Defense Fund, Gabriel’s Angle Foundation, and ONEXONE.
donated projects include: high-risk/vulnerable youth, cancer, children, art creation, education, family/parent assistance, health, human rights, hunger, intellectual disability, disability, poverty, and teammates who may not get large contracts elsewhere.
has too many names, and it is dazzling. You know that it is basically full of charity coverage. Let’s talk about money. What money did James spend for these charity organizations?
Charity School Inside.
Let’s choose the five biggest ones to talk about:
American Boys and Girls Club: In 2010, James took out 2.5 million US dollars from ESPN’s decision to broadcast live broadcast revenue to donate to this organization. The couple donated 1,000 computers to 59 branches across the United States.
Smithsonian African American History and Culture Museum: James contributed $2.5 million to the exhibition "Muhamud Ali: Fighting for Change" held by the renovated museum.
Children's Protection Fund: James' donation is mainly prepared with the after-school All-Star project, and donations are made with "high-risk children" as the main target.
ONEXONE: This project mainly provides breakfast, drinking water, medicine, education and off-campus activities assistance for children in school.
Off-campus All-Stars: This is a project jointly organized by James and the Akron government. It has donated more than $41 million in total and sponsored more than 1,100 students and their parents for adult re-education, which also made him one of the top 6 athletes in the world in 2015.
And "I promise elementary school" The I Promise School was incubated in the last project. James is no longer satisfied with donating to the children. He directly spent 8.1 million US dollars to build this public primary school and become Principal Zhan. And James is not just paying money, his idea is to become an industry benchmark.
This school accepts children who are in trouble in their families or who are one to two years behind in reading, and has initially established grades three and four.The school is located on the corner of St. Vincent in Akron, just steps from the least safe neighborhood in Akron, and the place has been a frequent area for drug abuse and drug-related murders in the past few years.
James' high school is on the same street as this elementary school. Because of his poor family, he also attended public schools since he was a child. He even did not go to school for 83 days in the fourth grade due to difficult living conditions.
If it weren't for the funding of society and kind-hearted people, James might have dropped out of school. We might not see the man who is standing at the top of the basketball world so generously. Recalling the past, James obviously never forgot his feelings at that time:
"For me, it's a very painful thing to be unable to go to class, because when I was in school, I like the architecture of the school, I like my classmates, I like playing, just like all other children, it's really hard to be one of them."
On October 22, 2015, James attended an educational charity event in Akron, USA.
So James' aid plan for children makes sense from the third grade. Of course, he doesn't know where to bring out a scientific truth:
"We have done research, and the data shows that if the third grade is down, the probability of completing high school will be much lower, so our student aid program starts from the third grade."
In order to make children focus on their studies, James not only spends money, but also personally sends text messages to the children, teaching them to study hard. Then there is also careful design in the school system. This primary school has longer study days and school years, and there are other packages to ensure that children are not affected by the harsh real environment inside and outside the school, and even provide work for children's parents.
This is not over yet, and the incentive mechanism also exists. As long as the children can complete the academic requirements under the "I Commitment" plan and enter the University of Akron, James will provide them with all the tuition fees for the 4-year university.
According to James and his foundation's expectations, they hope that by 2029, more than 1,200 students of the 2,300 children sponsored by the program will be able to enter university. Some foreign netizens have calculated the calculations:
Considering that the current annual tuition fee of Akron University is US$10,500, the tuition fee for four years of university education will be at least US$42,000 (not considering the increase in tuition). If the tuition fee increases by 3.7% every year, the tuition fee for four years will be US$44,400.
So, assuming that the first James school graduates (120 in fourth grade) enroll in 2019, the total tuition expense will reach at least $5.32 million, and I Promise School will provide this expense to students.
pair is basically the price of Cousins.
James participates in the charity ice bucket challenge.
but it just counts the amount of a grade. In fact, if everything works as James wants, James is ready to provide four-year full tuition to 1,200 such students, which means more than $50 million in spending.
Think about it, this 50 million US dollars is just university tuition. If you include the previous sponsorships, according to incomplete statistics, James and his foundation have raised a total of about 200 million US dollars ( is not all paid by James himself, including the funds he raised). . For comparison, James's salary in this life totaled 237 million US dollars.
If there is a lever, then it will be a sponsorship fee of Nike ?
Then satisfy them. After James signed a lifelong contract with Nike in 2015, the amount of the contract has been unknown, but his own words may have leaked the secret: "I plan to take out half of the contract Nike gave me, that is, $800 million to do charity."
money is an external object, but it looks really good. It depends on where you use it and how you use it. James, who spends money like money in charity, doesn't play with his mobile phone without wifi?
After this school that has been preparing for since 2017 finally became a reality, the whole United States was shocked. Mrs. Obama sent a congratulatory message on Twitter . Journalists and athletes from the US media also expressed their respect in the media. The words used include, but are not limited to: greatness, role model, inspirational, pride, and most importantly,
is more than just basketball.
Yeah, the most typical example is Magic point guard Jerian Grant , who earns only a year of more than $1.2 million in the past year, expressed on social media: "James has inspired me. Although I can't donate to build a school, I can give out some backpacks and school supplies. "
This is the power of role models.
So, sometimes it is better to do good things or leave a name. That's right, the last thing I'm talking about is another "black" star Louis Koo .
