Durant with Alysia Demery, Dez Fraiser, Magali Pineda and Joselin QuinterosKhristopher “Squint” Sandifer Patrick Ang Photography Mark Sebastian

The basketball star says that the Boys & Girls Club in his hometown of Washington, D.C. was crucial to his success.

“It connected with me so much because just living in unstable households and moving around to so many different places, not having someone I could lean on and stuff, and then going to the rec center and seeing mentors that helped me and supported me — that was huge,” he explains.

Alysia Demery and her family have faced homelessness, her mother struggles with mental illness and her brother has special needs. When Demery heard the good news, she was in shock. “I fell on the ground,” she tells ESPN’s Chris Connelly. “Just knowing that someone believes in you enough to literally invest in you.”

“I just wanted to let her know that anything’s possible if you put your mind to it,” says Durant. “And I know she has the work ethic to do so.”

Desmond Frazier is the youngest of six boys and works at Starbucks to support himself. He plays football, wrestles and runs track. Once, when Durant asked him what he was doing for Christmas, the young man said that he didn’t know since he was living in his car.

With Durant’s help, Frazier says he feels better equipped to pursue his passions. “I want to serve our community as a civic leader, a mayor, a congressman and eventually the President of the United States,” he said at the event in February.

“I was like, ‘Wow I can’t believe I impressed an MVP,’” says Magali Pineda, a senior at Everest Public High School when she heard about Durant’s decision.

Sean Mendy, Vice President of Development for the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula, calls Pineda an “incredibly mature kid.” In the fall, she will attend UC Riverside and plans to study visual arts and Chicano studies with the hopes of pursuing a career that combines technology and social justice.

Growing up, Joselin Quinteros would wake up at 5 a.m. to help her mother who works as a housekeeper. “I remember the big houses that my mom used to clean — like they were so big,” she says. “I wanted all of that and I still kind of do.”

Durant says he too remembers going to expensive neighborhoods and wanting a better life for himself and his family. “I understand what that’s like for her,” he says to ESPN.

The star’s altruism is likely influenced by what he says is the best advice he’s ever received: Don’t do things just for the money. “Don’t do things just for fame,” he says. “Do things because you feel right and it feels true.”

This mantra led the forward to take a nearly $10 million pay cut so that the Warriors could keep Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston and the team could hopefully continue to win titles together.

Durant credits his mother, Wanda Durant, for instilling in him the importance of giving back to others: “I thought giving back was always very important,” she said at an event at Thomson Reuters earlier this year, “and so we talked about that and he had seen that from us as a family and it’s one of the things that I taught him.”