Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The NFL Raises $22 Million for Haitian Relief

It's not everyday a positive off-the-field story is worth mentioning, but the news that the NFL helped raise $22 million from these weekends games via text message is an enormous achievement for both the league, and it's fans.

If you watched the divisional games this weekend, you probably saw the running advertisements to text "HAITI" to "90999" to make a $10 dollar donation. Initial reports came out that the NFL was raising $500,000 per hour for Haitian relief, blowing away expectations. Though I'm sure a lot of the NFL's decision making in this situation was purely PR, it's good to see the league that has given us so many horror stories off-the-field in the past decade, do something this positive.

To add some icing on the cake, it was great to see Pierre Garcon, the Colts receiver who became the poster boy for Haitian-American Athletes last week, make arguably the play of the weekend when he forced a fumble on an Ed Reed interception.

Hopefully the NFL can raise more money this weekend. It's obvious that the Haitian people are grateful for our presence and support in this relief effort. This money earned will hopefully go towards food and supplies to help in the nations rebuilding process.

1 comment:

  1. The NFL season concluded since the January issue of News and Notes, with first year snapper Jared Retkofsky earning a Super Bowl ring with the Steelers. Retkofsky’s story of getting the call to tryout for the Steelers after Greg Warren went down with an injury was a popular one in the week leading up to the Super Bowl. The Pro Bowl concluded the football season and Ryan Pontbriand of the Browns was the AFC snapper for the second straight year, joining Zak DeOssie of the Giants for the NFC squad

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