Steve Kerr’s team has graduated through each level of the playoffs. The Warriors are in the NBA Finals. The Bay Area is devoted to them.

But there is one group of young people in the East Bay who hold the Warriors and their head coach in a particularly special place in their hearts and minds.

They are in the midst of their own form of finals. They are aiming toward their own matriculation to the next level.

They are the students who benefit from scholarships that Kerr funds through the East Bay College Fund, a nonprofit that provides scholarships, mentoring and college resources for low-income East Bay students.

“It’s everything I believe in,” Kerr said this spring. “An education opportunity for people who might not otherwise have it.

“It’s the responsibility for someone being in my position to help in some way. All of us on the team have talked about how we can help. You want to do something close to your heart. This seemed like a perfect fit.”

Kerr isn’t sure how many students he’s funding, but Diane Dodge, the executive director of the program, estimates it at 20 students this school year and expects that number to grow next year.

One beneficiary is Jahlon Andrades, an Oakland resident who will be graduating from Oakland High on Friday and attending Dillard University in New Orleans in the fall. She will be the first in her family to attend college.

“The fact that he wants to help is awesome,” Andrades said on a visit to the Warriors’ practice facility to meet Kerr. “The kids in Oakland need help. Everyone is struggling — it’s far from perfect out there.

“A lot of people say they want to help but they’re just talking. He’s actually doing.”

Kerr contributes all of his fees from speaking engagements — and companies and organizations clamor to have the charismatic, accomplished coach speak — to the Warriors Community Foundation. Kerr earmarks that contribution for the scholarship fund, which he created in the memory of his father, Malcolm Kerr.

Most Warriors fans know the story of Kerr’s father. Malcolm Kerr was a professor at UCLA who exposed his four children to other cultures and a wide spectrum of political and intellectual points of view. When Kerr was in high school, his father became the president of the American University in Beirut — the institution where Malcolm had met his wife, Ann, and the city where three of their children, including Steve, were born.

When Kerr was a freshman at the University of Arizona, his father was assassinated by terrorists. The tragedy shaped his life and his devotion to many causes, including gun control and education.

“That was his whole world — education,” Kerr said. “Academics. I like to use basketball as a way to bring different people together. It’s nice to be able to combine my dad’s name with this.”

Kerr knows how lucky he was. He and his siblings knew they were going to college. His older brother is a professor of community sustainability at Michigan State, his sister is a local politician in England, and his youngest brother is in the construction industry. They all knew their education would be paid for and had plenty of support on how to navigate the process and the system.

“What an incredibly fortunate position to be in,” Kerr said. “You have to have the awareness that most people aren’t that fortunate. And to have the opportunity to help is quite a gift.”

The East Bay College Fund doesn’t just provide money. It also provides the resources to help students, many of whom have no one in their family to lean on for guidance, no one to help them figure out the increasingly complicated process of applying for school and the challenges of being successful.

“It’s not just about getting into college, it’s about finishing college,” Dodge said. “We try to help those least represented: African American and Latino males. Ninety percent of our students don’t have parents who went to college.”

Johann Romo, another Kerr beneficiary, said he had a rough time trying to figure out how to even apply to college.

“My parents didn’t know the whole process,” said Romo, now a criminal justice major at San Francisco State. “My brother went but ended up dropping out. I’m the last straw for my family.”

Allan Ahumada grew up in Berkeley and is also the first in his family to go to college. He thought he was headed to UC Merced but had paperwork issues and ended up being “pretty lost.” Now he’s at Berkeley City College studying computer science and planning to transfer to Cal, thanks to the East Bay College Fund.

“They really helped me out, with information about transferring and hooking me up with a mentor who has really helped me out,” Ahumada said.

When he found out who was sponsoring his scholarship, he was “amazed. I am so honored.”

The organization was founded in 2003 by Andy and Barb Fremder, who were looking for a way to give back to their community. They started out with helping seven kids; they now have 1,200 that they have assisted, and that number is continuing to grow.

When Dodge asked Kerr for his help, “He immediately said yes. He wanted to meet the students and mentors. They come to games. He asks about their classes; he shares what book he’s reading.”

At the stimulating dinners and gatherings at the Kerr household, he was the quiet kid in the corner, dreaming about sports. He listened and absorbed the words of people from all walks of life.

“I was so shy, I was so quiet,” Kerr said. “And now I basically speak for a living. My siblings are all amazed. They say, ‘When the hell did you start talking?’”

Now people pay him to talk. And he pays it back to his family business: being educated.

Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annkillion