KENDALL, N.Y. — A legendary high school and college basketball player who had a long professional career overseas is using his star power to help kids in need. Roosevelt Bouie isn’t doing it alone, either.

To help a community, sometimes it takes a community and a plan. The man with the plan is Bouie.

“Everybody just rolled the sleeves up, they jumped right in and got started,” said Bouie, the 6-foot-11 Kendall and Syracuse University basketball legend.

In his garage and his driveway, Bouie is building beds for needy kids — with the help of friends, of course.

“I said number one, it’s gotta be big enough to hold a Bouie,” he said. “It’s gotta hold a whole lot of weight. It’s gotta have a whole lot of room so you can sleep on it.

It’s funny how these things come about. Bouie ran into his old high school shop teacher at the local strawberry festival.

“I get a tap on my shoulder and it’s George Lonnen, my old shop teacher,” said Bouie.

“I call it divine intervention,” said Lonnen, who retired from shop teaching but still teaches driver’s ed in Kendall. “He was there when he didn't have to be.”

“We're just chit-chatting,” continued Bouie. “He said what are you doing now? And I said, funny you should ask.”

“And I’m going, 'do you have somebody who really knows how to use a saw?' ” Laughed Lonnen.

The idea for 50 Winks, a play on Bouie’s old jersey number, came after Bouie decided to make beds for his many nieces and nephews.

“And then that's when it dawned on me,” he said. “That when I was growing up in Kendall, your bedroom that was your castle. That was everything.”

He decided to form the Bouie Foundation as a way to give back to the place that gave him so much. Bouie says he hopes to expand the 50 Winks program beyond Orleans County throughout western and Central New York. There is another aspect to the Bouie Foundation, one called Anglers with Inspiration — which provides inner-city kids a chance to learn the basic skills of fishing.

“I still think Kendall is one of the greatest places in the world,” he said, "because anytime you need help, people show up.”

The foundation has received donations of nearly everything, from lumber to bedding to help.

“I’m speechless,” said Bouie. “I’m like a kid in a candy store. And I can help people.”