BY JOSH COHEN, OrlandoMagic.com
ORLANDO – This past March, Cole Anthony was named the winner of the 2023-24 Rich & Helen DeVos Community Enrichment Award, which goes each year to the Orlando Magic player who goes above and beyond to enhance the lives of others in the Central Florida community.
While much of the off-the-court work he’s done in the past has occurred in the middle of the NBA season, there have been plenty of instances where he’s provided a boost in between his summer basketball training.
The latest example came Wednesday at the Ivey Lane Neighborhood Center in Orlando, where he and others from the Magic surprised 50 kids with dinner, backpacks filled with school supplies, Magic basketballs and Magic socks.
This was the second event this week that Anthony and his 50 Ways Foundation held to help children before they head back to school. On Sunday at the James R. Smith Neighborhood Center, the Magic, team Community Ambassadors Nick Anderson and Bo Outlaw, and Anthony’s 50 Ways Foundation provided lunch from PDQ, Magic socks and backpacks filled with school supplies, including folders, notebooks, pencils and other giveaways, for the approximately 500 youth in attendance.
“For me, it’s a really big deal,” Anthony said. “I try to do something every summer, especially since I got into the league, to just try to help kids in some way really before they go back to school. I know it’s tough out there for a lot of people – a lot of families, a lot of kids. However, we can try to help ease the burden a little, that’s what we try to do.”
Winning the Rich & Helen DeVos Community Award for the first time in his career this past spring was one of Anthony’s most memorable achievements since joining the Magic in 2020.
Since 1995, the DeVos family has honored a player who has dedicated his efforts off the court for the purpose of enhancing other’s lives (due to the pandemic, the CEA was not awarded for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons). A panel of representatives selects the player based on the community work they did over the prior year. In addition to receiving the award, Anthony was granted $20,000 from the DeVos Family Foundation to donate to charities of his choice, which he announced a few weeks later at his 50 Ways Foundation bowling fundraiser at Primrose Lanes were Vibrant Families and CrossTown 119 ($10,000 each).
Anthony is one of three current Magic players who have won the team’s annual community award. Jonathan Isaac was a co-winner in 2019-20 with Aaron Gordon, while Wendell Carter Jr. took home the honor in 2022-23.
“It was really cool. Big shout out to the DeVos family for giving me that award,” Anthony said. “This is the future, the next generation…It’s dope to just try to help these kids out. In the long run – they might not be appreciate it now, but they will at some point.”
Last season, his fourth with the Magic, Anthony appeared in 81 games and averaged 11.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.9 assists. In Game 6 of Orlando’s first round playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, he connected on a putback layup with just under two minutes left in the fourth quarter that extended the Magic’s lead to five. They would go on to win that game to force a Game 7 in Cleveland.
Training camp two months away, the 24-year-old is eager to build off last year’s improvement.
“We not done making strides,” he said. “It’s steppingstones. We went up one more steppingstone and we have several more to do now.”
