The Kevin Durant Charity Foundation has announced that it will give College Track a $10 million donation in order to expand the organization’s college completion program to Prince George’s County, Maryland, the home of Kevin Durant.
The funds will be used to construct the Durant Center, a learning and leadership hub that will serve as the home of College Track’s vast ten-year curriculum. The program, which starts in the ninth grade, gives kids from disadvantaged backgrounds the tools they need to succeed in the twenty-first century economy and helps them overcome barriers to their college ambitions. The Durant Center’s College Track will welcome its inaugural class from nearby Suitland High School in the fall of 2018. According to the organization, participants in the program graduate from college at a rate that is more than twice as high as the national average for first-generation and low-income students.
In 1997, philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs and businessman Carlos Watson founded Oakland’s College Track. Its goal is to support high school students during their time in college and to prepare them for the intellectual, financial, and socioemotional obstacles that await them there. By 2021, the Durant Center, the organization’s first location on the East Coast, will be joined by two other locations in the Washington, D.C., metro region. In 2013, the Kevin Durant Charity Foundation was founded with the intention of improving the lives of young people from low-income families by means of social services, sports, and education.
Durant, who was named the NBA Championship Finals Most Valuable Player the year before, said, “This is my dream come true.” “To return home and use resources and world-class educational opportunities to positively impact the lives of children who share my aspirations and completely change the game in our community for generations to come.”
