The star player for the Boston Celtics, Jaylen Brown, says he wants to help kids and make his neighborhood better.
A big group of people gathered at the Fenelon Street Playground in Dorchester on Friday to meet Brown. Kaiya Santos, a student at Northeastern University, and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department are working with Brown to give the court a new look.
Brown has had a busy summer. After coming back from a trip in Spain, he is still trying to get his contract extended. If he signs the Celtics’ super-max offer of $304 million over five years, it will be the richest NBA deal ever.
That wasn’t important to Brown on Friday, though. Kids wearing Celtics t-shirts were thrilled to meet their hero and take pictures with him.
Brown stated, “It’s always about the next generation.” “Yes, I know that being an athlete can take you out of these places and make you forget where you came from.” I haven’t done that since I got here. Things will keep going like this as long as I’m here. This is just a small example of what goes on in different parts of Boston.
Brown was born and raised in Marietta, Georgia, which is only twenty minutes from Atlanta. The Fenelon Street Playground is only a few blocks away from Franklin Park Zoo. He is fixing and rebuilding it with the money he got from Red Bull.
The basketball court will be changed in a month with stylish zigzags, lightning bolts in shades of blue, orange, red, and yellow, and other colors. The plan was made by Santos. He won Red Bull’s “Get In The Paint” challenge, in which artists were asked to show how they saw the industry going forward.
She told the Herald in March, “It really does feel great to know that my art is going to help people.” A lot of people have a negative view of art, and I think that most of them think it is useless or silly.
Brown’s work in the neighborhood made Mayor Michelle Wu very happy. She said that the famous Boston Celtics hold a fundraiser every year at the Museum of Fine Arts to help fund social justice projects in Boston and across the country.
The mayor said this about Brown: “I’m just always blown away.” “He’ll just show up to court to hang out with the other people there and make sure that our young people see themselves in roles that will help them succeed in the future.”
Brown and his family started the 7uice Foundation and the BRIDGE program to help kids get jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math after he joined the Celtics in 2016. The 7uice Foundation works to improve schooling and solve many social problems.
Brown said this about the Fenelon Street Playground: “A lot of our kids will play and do things there.” That being said, this place also shows what Boston needs to do more of. We need more than just a nice court for kids to play on. Boston’s wealth gap needs to be fixed. There needs to be more jobs, opportunities, and resources accessible.