The Plains, a small town in Athens County amid the rolling hills of southeast Ohio, is home to approximately 3,000 people. Of those 3,000 people is Cincinnati Bengals rookie quarterback Joe Burrow and his family. On December 14, 2019 when Joe Burrow's name was called representing Louisiana State University as the winner of the 2019 Heisman Memorial Trophy, an award given to the most outstanding NCAA football player from that season, Burrow was full of emotion as he decided to stray from his script and speak from the heart about his home in Athens County and the problems they face with food insecurity.
"Coming from southeast Ohio, it's a very impoverished area and the poverty rate is almost two times the national average. There's so many people there that don't have a lot and I'm up here for all those kids in Athens and Athens County that go home to not a lot of food on the table, hungry after school, you guys can be up here too." - Joe Burrow
The next morning, Will Drabold, a graduate of Athens High School, started a fundraiser on Facebook encouraging people to heed Burrow’s message and donate to the Athens County Food Pantry. Shortly after starting it and sharing it with his friends and community members, the fundraiser went viral, and donations poured in from all over the world. Donators were from the United States, Europe, Sweden, South Korea, Japan, and several other countries.
With the overwhelming funds that equaled nearly six times the amount of funds the Athens County Food Pantry usually has for a given year, they were able to use what they needed to expand and better serve the community. According to Karin Bright, President of the Athens County Food Pantry, the food pantry immediately increased their food buys by 50%, and they were able to purchase additional equipment needed to store that food such as refrigeration units for fresh produce. Additionally, they also endowed $350,000 into the Joe Burrow Hunger Relief Fund that the state of Ohio matched through the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio. The endowment is now valued at over $800,000 and will be used for projects within the area.
"If I could say one thing to Joe, I would say thank you for being such a fine young man and for caring so much about the people in your community. Thank you for sharing an image of our community that wasn't just an image of things are not great here, but that image of hope." -Karin Bright
Joe Burrow's parents, Jimmy and Robin Burrow, still reside in Athens County. Jimmy is retired and Robin is an elementary school principal at Eastern Elementary where she sees a lot of what kids have to face on a day to day basis. Jimmy recalled an instance regarding the donations for the food pantry when a young student went up to her teacher and proudly told her teacher that her family went and got food from the "Joe Burrow Food Pantry."
"I think Joe can be a role model for what one is capable of doing regardless of where you're from... Joe is a living example of the fact that it can be done." - Jimmy Burrow
Blake Taylor, a student at The Plains Elementary school, looks to Joe as a source of inspiration and proof that he, too, can reach his goals. "It makes me want to do the same thing like he did and be a leader."
A organization in Baton Rouge decided to sponsor a family with a kid from Joe's home town to fly to Louisiana to watch LSU's national championship game, and Robin Burrow asked around town who people thought would enjoy the trip the most. After Blake's name came up several times, Blake and his mother, Robin Sutton, boarded a plane to go watch the Louisiana State University Tigers compete against the Clemson Tigers for the national championship. Prior to game day, Blake got to go watch Joe practice , take a picture with him, and receive a signed football.
"The football is like gold," Robin Sutton said.
Kyle Rutter, a sixteen year old junior at Athens High School, was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma, an extremely rare type of bone cancer, in June 2020. When Wendy Shields, a family friend, heard Kyle would be undergoing chemotherapy on a regular basis, surgery to replace his femur bone and full knee, and continuing chemotherapy for 9 months total, she started a fundraiser to raise money for his family. Joe sent Kyle a jersey and football with a signed message letting Kyle know he was thinking about him.
Credits:
Emilee Chinn