BATON ROUGE, La. — Nearly half-a-million dollars has been raised for hungry families in Joe Burrow's hometown of Athens, Ohio after his tear-jerking Heisman acceptance speech. Now, Burrow's second home, Baton Rouge, is feeling the love too.
More than $50,000 has been raised so far for the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank by generous Tigers fans inspired by Burrow's speech.
“Coming from southeast Ohio it’s a very impoverished area and the poverty rate is almost two times the national average," Burrow said. "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."
Will Drabold, an Ohio University Alumnus who went to the same high school as Joe Burrow, launched a fundraiser for the Athens County Food Pantry that's already raised nearly $500,000 and shows no signs of slowing down.
Two Louisiana women, Shelby Christian and Lois Young Stuckey, launched their own campaigns to help the Athens County Food Pantry. Together, they've raised more than $10,000.
LSU fans aren't forgetting their own friends and family in need though. A fundraiser started by Lindsay Heck has raised more than $50,000 for the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank in just two days.
"I know Athens County is getting a lot of attention right now, but right here in the city of BR, 26% live in poverty and 19% in the Greater BR Area," she wrote. "Let’s match what we each gave Athens? Anything helps. If you can’t donate, SHARE!"
Burrow is the first LSU Tiger to bring home the Heisman Trophy, college football's highest individual honor, since Billy Cannon in 1959.
Burrow not only took home college football's most prestigious award, but he also did so in record fashion - setting marks for largest margin of victory, the highest percentage of first-place votes (90.7 percent) and the highest percentage of being named on ballots at all (95.5).
Burrow won the Heisman handily by breaking nearly every passing record in the Tigers' books, leading LSU to an undefeated 13-0 season, capturing the Southeast Conference title with coach Ed Orgeron for LSU's first championship since 2011 and securing the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoffs -- with all eyes now on a national championship.
This isn't the end of Burrow and the Tigers though. LSU plays Oklahoma University in the Peach Bowl on Dec. 28 in Atlanta. If they win, they'll come back to Louisiana for the College Football Championship game in January.
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