NBA rookie Cameron Johnson warms up lunches with food donation to families in Moon

When the coronavirus crisis shut down the NBA season, Cameron Johnson drove directly from Phoenix to Pittsburgh in a 28-hour trip so he could return to his Moon Township home.

Before Johnson goes back, he wanted to give back.

The Phoenix Suns rookie donated food and drinks Thursday morning to families at Hyde Elementary in the Moon Area School District, where his mother, Amy, is a school nurse.

“She was telling me about the food dropoff they have on Thursdays,” Johnson said. “A lot of it is for those who are on reduced/free breakfast and lunch during the school year. Obviously, with those kids being home now, it puts more pressure on the parents to feed them, on top of of the economic pressure the virus presents.

“So, with that in mind, along with the challenge for the kids to switch up their learning to online to finish the school year, I just thought it would be nice to give them a little extra-warm food.”

So Johnson filled 12 dozen bags with Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwiches and nuggets, bottled water and bags of chips. He spent nearly three hours handing them out with his mother, his father Gil and his brothers Donovan and Braylon alongside Hyde Elementary principal Joe Johnson, food service director Christie Leininger and school counselor Neil Tkatch.

“This is a big-time help to the kids in our community,” Joe Johnson said. “This school is a big piece of this township. When they said he wanted to help, we jumped all over it.”

It was Johnson’s way of saying thanks for their support. He attended Moon as a freshman and sophomore before transferring to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in Coraopolis for his final two years of high school. Johnson played three years at Pitt and two at North Carolina before becoming an NBA lottery pick when he was selected 11th overall last June.

The 6-foot-8 Johnson averaged 8.1 points in 49 games this season, shooting 41.8% from the field and 39.7% from 3-point range, which ranked third among rookies with 100 minutes played. He scored a career-high 21 points on his 24th birthday against the reigning NBA champion Toronto Raptors.

The NBA is preparing for a return to play, although it hasn’t determined whether it will resume the regular season or conduct a modified playoffs. The Suns (26-39), who are in 13th place in the Western Conference standings, wouldn’t qualify for the postseason unless the league took the top 24 overall teams.

“The fact that I dreamed of this being my job for so long and now it is what I get to do every day, it’s great,” Johnson said. “It’s a lot of fun. You wake up every day, and your job is to go to the gym and try to get better at basketball, or try to win a game. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”