Displaying items by tag: Lebron

It's no secret that LeBron James is committed to making his home town of Akron better. 

With that in mind, LeBron hosted a press conference Tuesday night to announce his proposed "I Promise" elementary school in Akron. 

During the press conference, with the help of the LeBron James Family Foundation, the Akron-native made public his intention to provide a first-eighth grade school for students who may be at a disatvantage and more prone to falling behind their peers. 

The school would be in the city of Akron and would operate in conjunction with and according to regulations for Akron Public Schools. Eligible students would be selected through a lottery system, according to James. 

The focus of the school would be providing a hands-on-learning environment for kids through the eighth grade and focus on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills. 

An official proposal for the school will be presented to the Akron School Board in October, 2017. 

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas.

They came by the truck loads, hundreds of bikes delivered by Elves & More put a mile-wide smile on parents and kids faces in Akron on Sunday, just a week a before the holiday.

"Yes, I'm excited because I haven't had a bike in a longtime," Treymaine Lucas said.

Lucas received a bike from LeBron James, as part of the 'I Promise' program, but was stolen when he left it outside on the porch of their house.

Brandy Moore, his mother, said her son was very upset about what happened. She has three kids and was not able to buy her son another one. She said this event made things a lot easier, especially with her Christmas shopping.

"[This event] helps me out a lot because I can't afford to buy three bikes," Moore said. "Being that they were able to give my kids bikes, it's going to be their Christmas presents now."

Elves & More delivered 1,600 bikes total to kids and families in Akron, Canton and Springfield on Sunday.

Moore said she think it's "wonderful" what the people from Elves & More did because it will help a lot of families.

"I think it's nice. I think it's wonderful. It's a nice Christmas gift for all of these kids. Some kids aren't going to get nothing else for Christmas."

Tim House, Co-Founder of Elves and More, said it started about ten years ago when they decided to giveaway bikes for Christmas to kids who needed them most.

"Many of these parents and grandparents that are raising their granddaughter and grandsons or parents that are raising their own children; they're struggling right now and Christmas time puts another stress on them. They have no idea how they're going to buy a gift, so we supply that gift for them."

House said it's the smile on the kids faces year after year that makes this all worth it.

"If you see a kid on an Elves & More bike with a backpack, you know, you just say to your self, she's on her way to a library, she's on her way to school, she's on one of our bikes. There's nothing you can say bad about that."

House said he's lucky to have the amount of people that volunteers each year.

"We are very fortunate in volunteer base," House said. "Last week we put together 1,600 biclycles in about four hours. We had a little over 400 volunteers show up, put the bikes together and clean the warehouse."

One of the many volunteers who helped deliver bicycles at the Akron site was Walter Holtz. Holtz, who works for XPO Logistics as an operations manager in the Alliance and Youngstown area, said it feels good to deliver the bikes and see the kids reactions.

"It's really nice to see the faces and the expressions on kids faces when we give back," Holtz said. "Everybody likes to receive but at the same time there's that special feeling you get every time when you give to someone else...it's an indescribable feeling."

Elves & More does not fund-raise and try to receive grants and donations from corporations to fund the giveaways, House said. He said they're bank account is really low right now after getting the bikes, but in the end, he said, "it's all worth it."