Source: Icon Sportswire / Getty
Warrick Dunn has been a Tampa Bay legend since he spent his 12 year NFL career as a Buccaneer— but that status has been solidified more.
Now, the Buc has a new calling off the field which has recently led to him helping a single mother from St. Pete with a new home. According to TampaBay.com, LaToya Reedy always wanted her own home but it always just seemed like a dream. In the apartment she lived in, rent just kept getting higher until she and her 18-year-old son eventually had to move in with her mother. She had a steady job as a nurse’s assistant, but to support herself and her son was just too much.
“I got tired of paying the high rent,” she said. “And with renting it goes up every month.” After two years of sharing a space with her mother, Dunn, Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas and West Pasco Counties and its partnership with a furniture company, made her a homeowner.
Habitat for Humanity bought a plot of land and built a 2,000 square foot home equipped with two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
“Oh my God this is beautiful,” Reedy as she walked in the front door of her new, fully furnished home. “I love it. This is everything.”
Major props are in order for Dunn for helping to make Reedy’s dreams come true, but this far from the first time he’s teamed with Homes For Humanity to give someone less fortunate their own home. In fact, it’s the 173rd time thanks to the “Home for the Holidays” initiative.
Dunn may have become a star running back in the NFL, but with his mother passing away when he was just 17, he knows what it’s like to live through hardships.
“I’ve used this program as therapy. Every time I hand over those keys there’s a little piece of my mom and the things she wanted,” Dunn said when explaining how losing his mother at 17 years old led him to start his charity. “Once I started going to counseling I realized that I was on cruise control and just going through it that I didn’t have time to mourn. I just had to put my head down and get it done. I was just so focused on making sure that I could take care of my brothers and sisters, so that was my driving force.”
Clap for ’em.
