Cavs: Kevin Love continues to help his community

Regardless of your thoughts on Cleveland Cavaliers star forward Kevin Love and his worth to the team with that massive contract he signed back in 2019, where the Cavs are paying him 30 million a season, Love has always been committed to his community. He’s also been very outspoken in recent years discussing his troubles with his own mental health and his struggles of depression and anxiety.

Love is backing all that up with his actions. He recently went to John Adams High School in Cleveland where he helped the students and staff with some new lessons that are part of his own social and emotional learning curriculum that he’s designing and promoting to launch to schools in the area.

Kevin Love may have a reduced role on the Cavs, but he is still playing a major role in serving the community.

It’s these types of actions by players in the NBA and other professional sports leagues that showcase the level of commitment by many players. While some value only their own personal belongings and material things, Love and others give back and that’s golden.

The Cavs forward and community support leader in the house has been doing many things in the community over the last several years. During the early stages of the pandemic, Love made sure to send a message to those in need and seeking encouragement.

Love has also earned awards for his community service work earning the NBA Cares Community Assist Award back in 2019. During that time he even hosted employees at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse to discuss the topics of depression and anxiety. He has donated hundreds and thousands of dollars to these projects. His Kevin Love Fund has also evolved over the last few years to include the issues of inequality and racism prevention. One of his donations from the last two years was giving $100,000 to the workers at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse when the NBA wasn’t playing games and those employees weren’t working.

On the Kevin Love Foundation website, Love is quoted as saying “Everyone is going through something that we can’t see.” That belief is at the root of his foundation and makes so much sense and is something that I try to share in my own time as a school counselor with my students every day. Love says it best on his fundraiser website by saying, “…no matter how big or small it seems to you…you’re not weird or different for sharing what you’re going through.”

Love may not be that star forward that helped the team secure their championship back in 2016 anymore, but he’s still a great player, a good teammate and especially a leader for his younger teammates. Best of all, he’s a leading voice in his community and especially amongst the young people that need his words of wisdom most.

His decision to invest time and energy into a very important venue in the field of education is very cool to see. As a current educator in the field today, I value those from outside the field that understand educating our youth is about the future of this world and making it a better place. The social and emotional part of teaching in schools is needed so much more these days with our world crawling out of a serious pandemic.

I certainly look forward to seeing the progress these students make under the new program that Love is promoting and hopefully that will help at least one individual. That makes a difference.

I applaud you Mr. Love!