Greensboro, NC – Greensboro native and Washington Wizards’ Star Center Brendan Haywood joined forces with the Greater Greensboro Community Foundation to help provide the students at Peck Elementary School with books from their Spring Book Fair. On Thursday, May 31, Brendan and representatives from the Greensboro Community Foundation presented a check for $6,000.00 to Peck and met its students as they received their books.

Though Brendan did not attend Peck Elementary, Peck’s principal (Francine Mallory) brought to his attention about how academically successful her students were despite their economic backgrounds. She said that the large majority of her 400 students did not have any nice reading books in their home and were unable to afford to buy them at the two annual book fairs that come to Peck.  Brendan, who is in the process of starting his own foundation to help single parent and low-income families, was inspired and wanted to step in and help out. He sought out additional sponsors to match his $4,000 donation to buy books for Peck. The Greater Greensboro Community Foundation stepped up and volunteered to contribute an additional $2,000 of matching funds for the project.

The Spring Book Fair, which is executed by Scholastic, featured a “buy-one-get-one-free” sale on all books so every Peck student got to take home at least two new books.

Brendan grew up in Greensboro and attended Dudley High School. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2001 with a degree in Communications and just finished his sixth season with the Washington Wizards.

Peck Elementary School has some of the smartest but poorest students in North Carolina. Peck’s diverse student body is 58 percent African American, 16 percent Hispanic, 8 percent multi-racial, 6 percent Asian and 3 percent American Indian.  The remaining 9 percent of the student population is Caucasian. More than 85 percent of Peck students are eligible for free or reduced-priced lunches due to their parents’ financial status.