AKRON, Ohio – When students from Akron’s I Promise School traveled down West Market Street on Thursday to gather in the gym of St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, they weren’t quite sure what to expect.

About 240 students, donning white t-shirts with green text of the school’s motto, “We Are Family,” waited anxiously to see what was behind a curtain that stretched across the gym.

The banner dropped, and students cheered as they realized they were face-to-face with LeBron James.

James, whose foundation partnered with Akron Public Schools to create the school last year, made a surprise visit to announce a $1 million grant from the Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation to build a new gym for students’ physical education and after-school sports, according to a news release.

“We didn’t set out to have donations like this,” the Los Angeles Laker and Akron native said in a video of the event. “We didn’t set out for recognition. We just set out to do something great for our kids.”

I Promise School is a public school for some of Akron’s most at-risk third- and fourth-graders. All students started the school year in the bottom 25th percentile and performed below grade level. In less than a year, 90 percent of the students are meeting or exceeding individual growth goals in reading and math.

“I know we’re getting close to the end of the school year,” James said in the gymnasium of his alma mater. “The best place, for me at the end of the school year when I was growing up, was right in this gym where you guys are right now.”

Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation created the “Sports Matter” grant program in 2014 to help fund youth sports programs.

The news release did not indicate the cost of the new gym or when it will be built.

“To my kids, this is more than a gym,” James said in a statement. “The Dick’s Sports Matter program is helping us provide even more opportunities. An opportunity to play and learn in a safe place that many don’t have access to. I can’t imagine where my friends and I would be if it weren’t for the coaches and teachers who cared about us and the opportunities we had.”

The LeBron James Family Foundation and the 2K Foundation in December revealed renovations to the gym at the Balch Street Community Center, less than a mile from I Promise School. The school has used the gymnasium for assemblies, sports, after-school activities and other events.

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