LJFF Huddle

From the desk of the LeBron James Family Foundation

Posted on 10/12/2020

Huddle Up & Create Change

“Go back to your communities. Help rebuild them. Help strengthen them. Help change them.”

When LeBron made that charge at the ESPYs four years ago, the hope was that people would take strong and immediate action to make their communities better. But whatever came from that plea for change? For the LeBron James Family Foundation in Akron, it meant the creation of the I PROMISE Institute, the opening of the I PROMISE School and its Family Resource Center, followed by the opening of the I PROMISE Village. It’s meant landscapes changed, lives touched, and a community redefined. But is that enough?

Go back to your communities. Help rebuild them. Help strengthen them. Help change them.

This week the Foundation partnered with Stand Together for the inaugural I PROMISE Huddle to share those learnings, dig even deeper into the systemic injustices in our communities rooted in education, and take this movement beyond Akron. Led by dynamic speakers from across the nation – from CEO’s to students and everyone in between – the conversations about the stark realities of public education were honest, insightful, and inspiring.

With some of the world’s leading science and health scholars, business leaders, educators, advocates, investors and philanthropists as well as students and youth activists descending upon Akron to learn and know more, the Huddle met the tough stuff head on, taking on topics like redlining, education policy, and systemic racism while infusing love, humanity, and our “We Are Family” philosophy into all of it.

We had a special family moment when Ms. Gloria James was on hand to reveal the new Wheaties box featuring LeBron and his students at the I PROMISE School as Champions of Change. Because creating change is what this is all about.

Every conversation and every piece of content in this three-day event all led back to that simple mandate:

“Go back to your communities. Help rebuild them. Help strengthen them. Help change them.”

We can’t wait to see the new ideas, models, programs and partnerships that come out of this Huddle with the mission to achieve a more equitable future for all.

WE ARE FAMILY!