11th annual 'Christmas with the Currys' provides holiday cheer for Oakland students

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Friday afternoon in Oakland, Warriors superstar Stephen Curry took a break from basketball for something far more important: giving back to "The Town."

You could call him "Santa Steph" or "Curry Claus," but hours after landing from the Warriors game in Los Angeles, Curry donned in a Santa Hat and red sweatshirt, was alongside his wife Ayesha in full holiday attire as well, for the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation's 11th annual Christmas with the Currys.

The big announcement, the revitalization of the playground Manzanita Community School in Oakland.

"Just providing a sense of joy and some tangible impact during the holiday season that these kids can kind of thrive on," said Stephen Curry. "It's mainly centered around literacy this year and continuing to instill the joy of reading."

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The Curry's Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation is centered around those 3 primary pillars and during this past week, every elementary school student (around 17,000) in the Oakland Unified School District received a box of 5 books per student. Around 85,000 total books were donated, available in 3 different age ranges and also bilingual sets.

"We went to a 3rd grade class today, we have a 3rd grader so it really does resonate," said Ayesha Curry. "It just nice to see the joy in the kids and realize that what our team works so hard on all year long finally coming to fruition and it actually is making an impact with the kids."

The impact included much more than books for the students at Manzanita Community School, who in addition to receiving a new playground, were given food, school supplies, clothing as well as opportunities to take photos with the Warriors four most recent NBA Finals trophies. Manzanita is the first OUSD campus in 2024 to have a new playground with the help of the foundation and their partner KABOOM!

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"What we here over and over again, 'this is the greatest day of my life' from these kids. So, it's not just an afternoon at Manzanita with a holiday celebration, it's instilling in these kids that they are being seen."

Once again the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation bus was on site providing an extra place to hold books that the children took home to read.

"It's important for us to continue to plant our flag in that space and these are the tent pole events around the year that we know are going to be that we look forward to and pour into and that everybody can be a part of," said Stephen Curry.

Learn about Eat. Learn. Play. here.

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