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Kyrie Irving once again reaches out to community, this time to entrepreneurs

Brooklyn Nets v Milwaukee Bucks

In his latest community outreach, Kyrie Irving and his KAI Family Foundation have established a consultancy to help underrepresented entrepreneurs.

Marc J. Spears of ESPN’s “The Undefeated” broke the news Monday...

In a press release, Irving described the arrangement...

KAI 11 Consulting provides programs and mentoring that give business owners and personnel access to seasoned development coaches, area managers, and growth groups that offer roadmaps to scaling and cultivating efficiencies. In addition, KAI 11 Consulting is partnering with Michael Loeb, Bonin Bough, and Marcus Glover Co-Founders of Lockstep Ventures, to provide resources that lessen the financial gap divide in various communities.

“We must give our people the proper resources and stewardship for them to win beyond traditional investment vehicles,” said Irving. “This is not only essential to closing the wealth gap, but it also fosters a more unified, empowered, and liberated society.”

The launch of KAI 11 Consulting, Irving said, is just the first step in a comprehensive plan for the KAI 11 family of companies to work with minority, woman-owned, and underrepresented businesses on a variety of initiatives. News releases about additional initiatives are scheduled to be announced later this year, he added.

The consultancy is the latest in a series of community endeavors Irving has taken on himself, particularly since the pandemic began.

Since March 2020, Irving has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to food banks, hundreds of thousands of meals to hungry, thousands of pieces of personal protective equipment to his late mom’s Sioux nation in the Dakotas and set up a $1.5 million fund to help those WNBA players who couldn’t participate in the Bradenton “wubble.”

He also personally distributed turkeys to disadvantaged families in his two New York area “hometowns,” one in New Jersey, the other in the Bronx, at Thanksgiving. During the Christmas holidays, Irving broadened his generosity with his “11 Days of Giving” ... and paying the tuition of nine Lincoln University students.