HOUSTON — Why does Houston love JJ Watt?
The city’s admiration for the former tackling Texan goes way beyond the football field, and that’s thanks to all of his work off the gridiron.
His biggest impact came in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. After the storm devastated the area, Watt created a fundraiser to help, kicking it all off with own $100,000 donation. His goal was to raise $200,000, but by the end, he had collected more than $14 million.
According to his foundation, the money went to rebuild and clean over 1,000 homes, recover and rebuild close to 1,000 childcare centers and distribute millions of meals.
He also stepped up in the wake of another area tragedy. When ten people, most of them students, were killed in a shooting at Santa Fe High school, the small community was left reeling. Watt offered to pay the funeral expenses for all of the victims. It’s not clear how many families accepted his offer, but at least one used the funds to lay their loved one to rest.
Watt was also there for this community in the smaller moments as well. Back in 2018, a fourth-grader wrote an essay in his reading class as part of his STAAR test prep work. He wrote about the person he would most like to meet -- JJ Watt. His proud teacher posted it on Twitter. Watt responded by inviting the fourth grader and his teacher to NRG Stadium. That was just one of so many moments that earned him the respect of so many in H-town.
