They remember it differently.

To you, it was a staged announcement. To the kids who were at the Greenwich, Conn., Boys and Girls Club last July 8, it was an exciting visit to their home. To you, his choice was about maximizing fortune and fame. To them, it was his chance to play with his friends. To you, he seemed stiff, almost embarrassed when he said, "I'm going to take my talents to South Beach." To them -- once the show was over and he was asked to pose for a photograph -- LeBron James was warm and gracious.

"It was like I was looking up at a star," says Gigi Barter, age 8. "He smiled at me, and suddenly I was lifted up, and sitting on his shoulders. I was scared, but I was on top of the world!"

Teddy Flinn, 6, at one of the 30 new computers LeBron's "Decision" helped buy for the Greenwich Boys & Girls Club. Rob Tringali for ESPN.com

This Friday marks the first anniversary of "The Decision," and while it isn't cause for celebration in Cleveland -- or Miami, for that matter -- it is in the building on Horseneck Lane and throughout the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. As a result of the sponsorships for the show, and at the specific request of James, more than $2 million was donated to the organization. And the boys and girls at the club in Greenwich now have a new gym floor with the "Knuckles" logo, 30 new Hewlett-Packard computers (families without computers get the old ones), some fresh Nike equipment and -- coming soon -- a climbing wall.

"The best gift of all," says Bob DeAngelo, the dynamic executive director who's an alumnus and a former fighter pilot, "is the visibility for what we do here, and at every Boys and Girls Club."

What the Boys and Girls Clubs do, with classes and programs and camps, is enable and encourage kids to find their own talents -- be they alums such as James, or Denzel Washington, or J-Lo, or J-Ro (Jimmy Rollins), or Steve Young, who learned to swim in the pool that the James entourage (including Kanye West) walked past on the way to the gym that night.

You may criticize "The Decision" as a TV show, and you may think James and the Heat got what they deserved in the NBA Finals. But please don't subscribe to the cynical and glib notion that the leafy address somehow lessens the mission of the club. Children everywhere need a hand -- and a place. The Greenwich Boys and Girls Club has been helping local kids and their families since 1908.