Steph Curry partners with Summit Coffee to refurbish a local gym

“His eyes lit up,” Chris Helfrich, CEO of Curry and his wife Ayesha’s Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, tells Axios. “He said, ‘Oh yeah that’s amazing, let’s do it.'” The NBA superstar’s enthusiasm for the project in that moment, Helfrich adds, was “proof positive” of his character.

What’s happening: Eat. Learn. Play is partnering with the Summit Foundation (the charity arm of Summit Coffee) as well as with Curry Brand/Under Armor to refurbish a basketball court at the Ada Jenkins Center, a community facility where Curry volunteered as a Davidson student.

Why it matters: Steph Curry may be larger than life, but he remains loyal to the Charlotte area.

• His foundation made the announcement about the project last week, shortly after Curry received his degree from Davidson and a key to the city of Charlotte.

The goal is to create a state-of-the-art recreational facility for local grade-school-age kids, particularly those who are behind academically. The three organizations’ total investment in the project will exceed $300,000, per Helfrich.

• Funding will go toward completely remodeling the space — from installing a new basketball court to adding murals — and toward new equipment.
• Summit’s contribution will support programming at the center, says Summit Coffee CEO Brian Helfrich (Chris’ brother).

“It is sort of both a gift to our community and a commitment that we want to continue to serve the community that has supported us for so long,” Brian Helfrich, a Davidson grad, told Axios.

• Brian, who started the Summit Foundation eight years ago with his brother Tim (also a Davidson grad), considers the Ada Jenkins gym restoration to be his foundation’s “legacy project.”

• This means they’ll be closing the foundation with the project. “We wanted to dig deeper roots in Davidson,” Brian says.

Of note: This is the ninth court refurbished in the U.S. since the launch of Curry Brand in 2020, Brian says. The other courts are in the Bay Area and Baltimore, and the first was at the Carol Hoefner Center in Charlotte.

Timing: Construction begins soon and the goal is to wrap up by the end of the year. There will be some kind of community dedication when work has wrapped up on the facility.