The William Penn Charter School campus was quiet outside on Saturday’s hot, hazy morning. Inside the campus’ athletic center, though, it was anything but.
Across multiple basketball courts in the massive gym, around 200 local kids joined Philadelphia 76ers’ guard Tyrese Maxey and his Foundation for its annual 1% Better Skills Camp. The free camp for kids ages 7-to-12 was the last of multiple community events that have taken place around the area over the last few days as part of the Tyrese Maxey Foundation’s
third annual Friends & Family Weekend.
The kids in attendance worked with coaches and volunteers in a variety of basketball skill drills and 5-on-5 games, with Maxey himself ran through some of the drills right along with them. He was sure to take the time to stop to talk with individual kids, hold babies, greet the volunteers and overall just make sure everyone was having a good time.
Even through all the massive excitement and anticipation surrounding the Sixers in response to the monumental offseason additions of LeBron James and Jaylen Brown, Maxey is remaining steadfast in his focus on community involvement.
“We’re always going to do this, this is who I am,” Maxey said. “This is where I want to be. This is the fun part of being who I am.”
Speaking of those new teammates, Brown especially has expressed an immediate interest in getting involved in the community, just as he had done throughout Boston over his ten-year tenure with the Celtics. He even held his introductory press conference as a Sixer at a local rec center this week, instead of usual location of the team’s facility.
Maxey says that just motivates him to do more.
“[Brown] showed up to the Night of Giving and the golf tournament and I just said to him ‘look, anything that you wanna do, let me know. I’ve been here seven years. Whatever you wanna do, I’m pretty sure I have some type of connection through my foundation team, and we’re gonna get it done.’
“That just makes me more happy that somebody wants to come right in—he’s done the whole city tour I feel like. He went to the [Danny Rumph Classic], he went to the Phillies game, he went to Eagles practice, he came to my stuff—that’s just love. I think the city’s gonna be glad to have him.”
From basketball camps like this one to turkey drives at Thanksgiving and toy drives around the holidays to scholarships and more, the Tyrese Maxey Foundation has been incredibly active in the community both around Philadelphia and in Maxey’s hometown of Dallas since its founding in 2021.
Maxey is always sure to credit his grandmother for, long before he had “made it”, putting him in the mindset of giving back as much as he could if he was ever able to. Now, he has even more motivation from the family side of things after becoming a father for the first time earlier this year with the birth of his daughter, Marvel, who is now three-months old.
“It definitely changes my perspective. It makes me wanna be even more involved,” Maxey explained. “I’m just grateful.”
“The biggest thing for us as a Foundation is that we try to give back, we try to motivate, we try to do a lot of different things in the community to keep people uplifted, and I think we’ve done that.”
Being in the athletic center for this camp made it hard to disagree. From the hundreds of kids on the courts, to Maxey, the volunteers and coaches running the show, to the parents and spectators in the stands, the overwhelming feeling in the gym Saturday morning was a simple one: joy.
