IT’S JUST ONE INITIATIVE AT THE HEART OF THE NBA STAR’S NEW SCHOOL DESIGNED FOR AT-RISK KIDS

Although he’s leaving Cleveland for Los Angeles, LeBron James has made yet another investment to his hometown of Akron, Ohio. 

The basketball superstar, in conjunction with the Akron school board, launched the I Promise School this week, a school designed for at-risk kids who are struggling in the classroom and at home.

One of its core initiatives? Each of the 240 students will receive a bicycle and helmet.

This program isn’t the first time James has gifted bikes to young children. His foundation, the LeBron James Family Foundation, has made bikes a staple of its outreach program. 

And that’s largely because of what cycling meant for James as a kid in Akron: It gave him an escape.

“LeBron’s bike gave him the mobility he needed to get to safe places after school like basketball courts and community centers,” Michele Campbell, executive director of the LeBron James Family Foundation told Bicycling by e-mail. “Those two wheels gave him access to opportunities and resources he couldn’t have gotten otherwise.”

In 2008, in one of the foundation’s earliest efforts in Akron, James participated in a bike-a-thon in which he rode through the streets with students and families. But it was a one-and-done, said Campbell.

“LeBron knew he could do more,” she said.

So, in 2011, James launched a program called Wheels for Education, in which every new class of third graders was given a new bike and helmet. That program has since evolved into the I Promise School.

“It’s important to LeBron that his students receive bikes because he knows how much he needed his when he was growing up. His family didn’t have a car, so if he wanted to get anywhere, he had to ride,” said Campbell. “It allowed him to stay safe and out of harm’s way. That’s what LeBron hopes his kids will get out of these bikes.”

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