Kawhi Leonard decided to return home and sign with the Los Angeles Clippers as a free agent.
While Leonard hopes to lead the Clippers to a championship win, he wants to bring joy to the community off the court.
On Tuesday (August 20), Leonard visited Cloverdale Elementary, where he was once an honor roll student, with a big surprise. He presented the students with brand new backpacks to start the school year off strong.
Leonard encouragement some encouragement to the excited students, saying:
“I’m happy to be here. This is where it all started for me, at Cloverdale. This is where the dream began. I know how hard it is for parents and students at the start of the school year, so I wanted to start here today by giving away a million backpacks to Southern California and to every student here today.
“That’s one of my goals this year, to help on and off the court in a great way, and I felt like this would be a great way to start. I hope you guys know the Clippers have your backs so long as you put in the work. Like I always say, just be great.”
Leonard will be donating backpacks to all the children in the Los Angeles, Inglewood and Moreno Valley Unified school districts.
According to the Los Angeles Times, more than 80% of K-12 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District system were eligible for free or reduced lunch, meaning they are either from a low-income family, homeless or in the foster program.
For him this is just the beginning, “I want to help kids with their education, to hopefully inspire them to keep moving forward despite the obstacles. And I wanted to start with my old school, because this is where it all started at for me,” he said.
