If the below story doesn’t get your heart warmed up this morning, I don’t know what will.
From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:
Fujita has decided to donate half of his $82,000 in NFL playoff earnings to two causes, one of which is coastal restoration.
His reasons?
“The people of this city and region have been so good to me and my family that we just felt strongly about doing something to protect the city we have come to love so much, ” Fujita said. “And helping on the coastal issue has been on the back of my mind since I first got here.”
“You always hear about southern hospitality, but I experienced it from my first days here, ” Fujita recalled. “I was living in a residence hotel for the first few weeks while we looked for a place in town, and spent that time just walking around the city and bar hopping, getting to know the place.
“Well, when people found out I was moving here from another city, I couldn’t pay for a drink. They didn’t know I was an NFL player. They just knew I was a guy who had come to join them, and that was it – I was a hero. I don’t think I paid for a drink for the first three or four weeks.”
“Jaclyn and I were looking not just for a cause to donate to, but more importantly something we believe in, something we think we could actually make a difference in by using the visibility of the New Orleans Saints, ” he said. “And the coastal issue had been in the back of my mind almost since I got here.”
Keep in mind that this is the same Scott Fujita that won’t be playing in New Orleans anymore after signing a free agent contract with the Browns over the weekend. Outside of playing for the Saints, he has no ties to New Orleans (he grew up in California), yet he still recognized what the city did for him and wanted to help out in any way he could.
I’m never one to suggest that athletes have to donate because it’s their money – they can do whatever they want with it. But for a player like Fujita to donate all of his playoff earnings the way he did just shows what a class act he is.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
