16-Year-Old Twins Working at LeBron James' Akron Restaurant Share How It Feels Like ‘Family’ (Exclusive)

Chiara KimWed, June 24, 2026 at 8:38 PM UTC

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Raymel and Raelyn, 16, both work at BucketsCredit: Courtesy Lebron James Family Foundation -

Twins Raymel and Raelyn work at LeBron James' Akron, Ohio restaurant Buckets, gaining skills and bonding with their team, which they say feels like "family"

Buckets, part of the LeBron James Family Foundation, provides jobs for Akron's I Promise Program families

LeBron James says Buckets fosters community and offers opportunities for growth, and the twins share what they've learned at the restaurant

Raymel and Raelyn know a thing or two about family.

The twins, 16, both work at LeBron James' Akron, Ohio restaurant Buckets, where they've learned core skills and have built their relationships with other crew members, who they tell PEOPLE are like family.

Buckets, the LeBron James Family Foundation's (LJFF) new restaurant, spotlights James' basketball legacy and the Foundation's work in the community, per a press release shared with PEOPLE. It serves everything from fried chicken to smashburgers to dips.

"Everything about Buckets is so intentional and meaningful," James tells PEOPLE in an email. "We wanted to create a place where people feel right at home in our community and can come gather over some great food."

"More importantly, we wanted to create jobs and provide training opportunities for the kids and families in our program that want to be a part of something special," he adds.

The restaurant employs family members in the I Promise Program, which provides support to students and their families in Akron to help them stay in school, per the Foundation's website.

Raymel started at the Foundation's I Promise School in Akron in its first class of third graders in 2018 and now works at Buckets as a server. Raelyn works in the kitchen, to which she applied after director of culinary Aaron Blank encouraged her to apply given her high school culinary education.

She shares what it's like working with her twin.

"He'll sometimes tease me," Raelyn says. "It's not only him, it's like everybody there. [They] just say funny things or like 'get to work.'"

Raymel, 16, works at the front of house at BucketsCredit: Courtesy Lebron James Family Foundation

"It's like a family, basically," she explains. "We are a family."

"It's really fun and reassuring to know that I work with like my literal blood," Raymel adds.

The twins' mother Janette works as operations manager at House Three Thirty, the Foundation's community center where the restaurant is located, which also provides job training and financial health programming, per the release.

"I'm so proud to see people like Raelyn and Raymel work their first full-time jobs at our restaurant, and even prouder that their mom, who also works at House Three Thirty, has that trust in us and how we do things to allow both of her kids to work alongside her," James says.

The twins' family ties go beyond the immediate relationship at the restaurant. Raelyn says the LJFF slogan "we are family" is taken "seriously."

"At first I was like, 'okay, it's just, we are family', it's a foundation that wants to help other people, but when I got in the workspace, I was like, 'oh, like we're really family,'" she says, adding that people take time to check in when someone's going through a "hard time."

"It helps a lot. People want to be more interactive with us and are happy to actually come to work," she says.

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"I really do think when people walk inside of our building or when you're greeting people, just simple things like that, it really is like making somebody's day or just making someone smile," Raymel adds.

Raelyn, 16, works in the kitchen at BucketsCredit: Courtesy Lebron James Family Foundation

One thing Raelyn has learned in her role is communication.

She says she needs to keep track of the various operations in the kitchen, from seeing if the fries are the right golden color, to asking things like "do we have enough food? Do we need to slow down so we're not wasting so much chicken?"

Raymel works at the front of the house, which he says entails multitasking.

"Nobody at the front is only doing one thing," he says. "It might say that, 'oh, you're a server or you're a butcher, so you do this, you do that.' No, everybody is chiming in."

He says that he learned from House Three Thirty's director of events Vaughn Myers (who he and Raelyn call "Peanut") the importance of "attention to detail."

"Even if I'm bussing down the table or setting things up and there's like the slightest bit [of] like a crooked chair, I just go and fix it because things like that bug me and people tend to look at things like that," he said.

Raelyn says Myers taught her about financial literacy, which she says is "so important" to learn at a young age.

"He was talking about how you shouldn't buy something once if you can't buy it again," she says.

Raelyn's favorite Buckets menu item is the same as James' — The Kid From Akron's Cookie, a chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream and caramel drizzle, a recipe from James' chef. Raymel loves the hot honey wings.

He says LeBron James inspires him in more ways than one, from turning him from a lukewarm sports fan into a basketball player to showcasing leadership and advocacy.

"We rep LeBron so hard because I feel like he's the only basketball player that really cared about where he came from and wanted to share a little, not even a little bit, a lot of what he got with his community," Raelyn adds, citing resources like the I PROMISE Village, which provides short-term housing to families experiencing challenges like homelessness.

"I think that's just so important because a lot of families benefit now from what he has done with the community," she says.

"It's all about family and creating something that gives our students, parent[s], and families opportunities to learn and grow," James says of Buckets. "I hope their experience at House Three Thirty and working at Buckets gives them the skills and the support system to be successful in anything they want to do in life."

Raymel dreams of becoming a vendor and independent business owner, while Raelyn is interested in psychology or becoming a dental hygienist.

"I just really love helping people out, and I want to do that in a medical way or an emotional way," she says.

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”