Kyle Korver is one of five nominees for the J. Walter Kennedy Award given annually to the NBA player, coach or trainer who shows outstanding service and dedication to the community.
The award has been presented since the 1974-75 season by the Professional Basketball Writers Association.
Also nominated for the award are the Heat’s Ray Allen, the Spurs’ Matt Bonner, the Cavaliers’ Luol Deng and the Thunder’s Kevin Durant. The winner will be announced following an April vote of PBWA membership.
The Hawks guard started the Kyle Korver Foundation early in his professional career with a mantra of “one child, one family, one class, one school, one neighborhood, one city,” behind the belief that an individualistic approach is the way to enact change for underprivileged children and families. The foundation has been a part of a number of charitable endeavors, including building more than 100 wheelchair ramps, holding coat drives and hosting holiday parties for underprivileged children. He recently used conducted an NCAA men’s basketball tournament challenge to help raise money to continue building wheelchair ramps in Salt Lake City.
Korver is also the owner and operator of Seer Outfitters, a clothing brand that donates 100 percent of its profits to support organizations and causes throughout the country. Among other projects, Seer has contributed to the repair of youth development centers and provided meals to the homeless.
This season, Korver joined forces with Atlanta Mission and Kid President to support “Socktober,” an effort to collect socks for the homeless. The weeklong sock drive in October collected more than 4,000 pairs of socks for Atlanta Mission, the city’s largest and longest-running provider of services to homeless men, women and children. For the second straight season, he participated in the Hawks Assist program, purchasing tickets for 1,000 underprivileged children and chaperones to attend Hawks games. Additionally, in conjunction with his record run of consecutive games with a made 3-pointer, he teamed-up with the Hawks through the organization’s Threes for Trees program to donate 90 Christmas trees to military families in metro Atlanta on Nov. 29.
In February, Korver took part in the “End It” movement aimed at raising awareness for world-wide slavery. He put red X’s on both hand and shoes to bring attention to the cause. According to the movement’s website, there are men, women and children enslaved in factories, brothels, private homes and fields under the control of others using them for financial gain. Korver got involved through his Atlanta church, one of the originators of the national movement.
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