Travis Kelce’s first purchase: A building for inner-city teenagers to study STEM

When Travis Kelce signed a four-year, $57 million contract extension with the Chiefs this week, he decided that his first purchase would be something more meaningful than a new car.

Kelce announced that he will be buying a building for his Eighty-Seven & Running Foundation to give inner-city Kansas City teenagers a safe place where they can study science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“I am purchasing the building that will be the future home of the ‘Ignition Lab: Powered by 87 & Running’ – a co-working space where these teens will have the support, resources, and opportunity to explore careers in STEM, launch their own entrepreneurial ventures and gain real-world experience,” Kelce wrote on the foundation’s website.

Kelce was inspired to start the foundation because he saw in his own childhood, growing up in a diverse community in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, that many kids didn’t have the same advantages that he did. When he got to the NFL he was determined to help disadvantaged kids, and his new contract is a means for him to do so.