NFL Superstar Goes Above and Beyond for Family of Slain Firefighter
J.J. Watt’s philanthropic and charitable acts for his adopted hometown of Houston, Texas, have been well chronicled.
But Watt has never forgotten his roots. The Texans superstar is a native of Waukesha, Wisconsin, which sits just outside of Milwaukee.
When Watt heard about the tragic death of Mitchell Lundgaard, a firefighter in Appleton, Wisconsin, who was killed in a shooting, he wasted little time in helping out. Watt donated $10,000 to a GoFundMe page created in the firefighter’s honor, according to the Appleton Post-Crescent.
“Lundgaard, a 14-year veteran of the Appleton Fire Department, was shot Wednesday after responding to the downtown transit center for a medical emergency,” the Post-Crescent reported.
The shooting wasn’t related to the medical emergency, according to Fox News, but Lundgaard was one of four people hit by bullets. He and the gunman were the two fatalities of the shooting.
— Appleton Police (@AppletonPD_WI) May 16, 2019
According to the GoFundMe page set up for Lundgaard’s family, “100 percent of the donations received will go to support Mitch’s wife and 3 children.”
Watt’s $10,000 donation has been matched by an anonymous person. Those are the largest of the roughly 1,500 donations made as of Friday afternoon.
At publication time, the campaign had raised almost half of its $250,000 goal.
Firefighters in Wisconsin are near and dear to Watt’s heart, particularly because his father, John, is a retired firefighter.
Watt has a history of making similar donations. “He also gave $10,000 to the family of Cory Barr, the fire captain who was killed in an explosion in Sun Prairie in July 2018,” the Post-Crescent reported.
Perhaps most famously, Watt was instrumental in helping raise more than $40 million for Hurricane Harvey victims in 2017 and 2018.
For his humanitarian efforts, Watt was named the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year in February 2018.
Watt is always looking out for others, but he also took care of himself after this past season.
He underwent knee surgery shortly after the season to clean up a minor, lingering issue, and will likely be ready for training camp.
Due to his history of injuries, there has been some speculation as to when Watt will retire, but he has no plans to call it quits anytime soon.
“I don’t want to leave the game anytime soon,” he said last month, according to NFL Network’s James Palmer. “I wouldn’t trade if for anything else in the world.”
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