HOUSTON \u2013 Inside the hallways of a Houston elementary school, artwork and fun messages about Thanksgiving gratitude decorate the walls.<\/p>\n
At Southwest Public Schools International Leadership Academy, the children were constantly asking for improvements to their playground. They wanted to play and have fun like any other kids.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the playgrounds had become rundown and unsafe without a proper budget to fix them up.<\/p>\n
So, Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud and his charitable foundation led by his mother, Kimberly Stroud got involved to assist this underserved community. They were contacted by Chantal Sanchez, a project leadership manager and social worker at the school.<\/p>\n
In partnership with Lowe\u2019s and Full Court Peace, the C.J. Stroud foundation is remodeling the playground. It will be unveiled for the students Tuesday at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.<\/p>\n
“We really just wanted the community to know that we see them,\u201c Kimberly Stroud said. \u201dThe students here, they had begged for two years for a new playground and their wonderful project leadership manager, Chantel Sanchez, reached out to the C.J. Stroud foundation and asked for help and she said their budget, they just couldn\u2019t afford to refurbish their playgrounds, they were unsafe and just you know not appealing and the kids just couldn\u2019t really have fun out there.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we decided that would be a great legacy project. One thing that\u2019s near and dear to C.J. is our youth. This is an underserved community where there\u2019s a lot of single parents and we just want to give back. So, this has just been a delightful day. We know that it\u2019s gonna bring so much joy to the kids.”<\/p>\n
On a hot day late last week, Kimberly Stroud and her team partnered up to begin constructing the playground equipment.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a lot of hard work, rolling up their sleeves to get it all done, but they can\u2019t wait to show the handiwork to the children.<\/p>\n
“I think it\u2019s gonna be amazing because children are our future,\u201c Kimberly Stroud said. \u201dThat may sound a little bit corny, but it\u2019s the truth you know and in this day and time we live in we have to let them know that we see them, we hear them and they matter and that\u2019s what\u2019s important to know know. So, just bringing a smile to their face I think that\u2019s something so small that we all can do that makes such a big impact and so when the children come to school a lot of times this is the only joy that they receive. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is sometimes the only food they receive.so I want it to be impactful I want them to know that C.J. had very similar circumstances and that he cares not just a football player he\u2019s a human being that has been through a lot and this really makes a difference and it means a lot to him.”<\/p>\n
The playground will have swing sets, a jungle gym, a fabric barrier for privacy, new mulch and lights and a science garden for projects, a racetrack, a physical education area and other features.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just really want to thank the people at Lowe\u2019s,\u201d Kimberly Stroud said. \u201cWe could never have done this without them. They\u2019re an amazing company. They brought resources that I can\u2019t even imagine you know and they just came out with full volunteers and just took over and just did an amazing job. C.J. works so hard and his name means something. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s everything that stands behind the name: his integrity, hard work, all that he does on and off the field and so because of that we\u2019re able to build the C.J. Stroud foundation to be what it is today and that\u2019s hopefully inspiration. The Houston community has welcomed us with open arms and so we can\u2019t help but give back, and they\u2019ve been more of a blessing to us.”<\/p>\n
Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 Inside the hallways of a Houston elementary school, artwork and fun messages about Thanksgiving gratitude decorate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[9955,11119,56,58,57,79,25836],"class_list":["post-43791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-c-j-stroud","tag-charitable-foundation","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-texans","tag-kimberly-stroud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}