SAN ANTONIO – Four San Antonio Spurs players joined a group of kids at an SA Youth Center near downtown Thursday afternoon.

  • 4 players plus staff helped paint additions to youth center
  • SBGB donated $45,000 in 2018 for a new basketball court
  • Kids made a "thank you" poster

Drew Eubanks, Chimezie Metu, Ben Moore and Lonnie Walker IV, along with Spurs staff, showed up to help them paint and refurbish a play area and fence line at the downtown location.

“To have the opportunity that a Spur, a person that [kids] think is a like a movie star, to actually focus on them and pay attention to them, give them meaning. That is the world to kids at SA Youth,” CEO of SA Youth Asia Ciaravino said.

Last year, Silver & Back Gives Back donated a new basketball court for the more than 1,500 children served by SA Youth through Operation Renovation.

 

 

 

 

The players were all-hands-on-deck for Thursday's event and kids enjoyed every minute of it. They kids even made a “thank you “poster.

 

 

 

“I had an amazing time spending time with these kids. I have a similar background, I know what’s it’s like and I know what it is,” Walker IV said. “To have something like this, where people watch over you and make sure everything is positive, it goes a long way. The fact that I could be here and participate and help out, it was fantastic.”

In 2018, SA Youth was awarded $45,000 in facility grants through SBGB’s Operation Renovation to resurface and paint their new basketball court and install new hoops in an effort to improve the outdoor play experience for the children in the community.

SA Youth is a nonprofit organization that offers premiere Out-of-School Time Programming for elementary age children and offers opportunities for high-risk youth to earn a high school diploma and gain marketable workforce skills.