Giving Back: Jaguars CB Tre Herndon Explains the Driving Forces Behind His Donations to Local Community
In March, Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback Tre Herndon and his girlfriend, Treyleanna Robinson did their part to help the local Jacksonville community combat COVID-19 by pledged a donation that will provide 10,000 meals to residents that Feeding Northeast Florida serves.
For Herndon, the decision to give back was an easy one and a decision he has made before. Like his past homes, Jacksonville has embraced him, and Herndon wanted to embrace it back when it needed someone to do so the most.
“Really the thought of it all got started going back to my days at Vanderbilt," Herndon told local media on Wednesday. "I studied sociology and just ever since then, I have grown a passion for [helping out] areas with poverty, people with poverty and low-income areas.
"Last year, I did an event in my hometown, Chattanooga, Tennessee where I fed a couple hundred people at a soup kitchen. Since then, I have made it a point to try to do something like that every year where I can help out a community that is going through those kind of things."
Herndon and Robinson's move to donate to Feeding Northeast Florida, a local food bank that serves the Jacksonville area, was one the two made to help out a community they now call home. During a time in which COVID-19 has left many vulnerable, both in terms of health and financial status, Herndon and Robinson stepped up to provide some aid.
"With this virus going on right now and knowing that I am a part of another community, I felt that helping Northeast Florida in any kind of way … Those who may not be as fortunate to have money for meals and have to use their money for hand sanitizer and other supplies to protect themselves," Herndon said. "I felt it was a great opportunity to help out another community that I’m a part of.”
Herndon, a third-year cornerback who came into his own as a starter on the outside for Jacksonville in 2019 after signing with the team as an undrafted free agent the year prior, had never worked with Feeding Northeast Florida before this endeavor, but his first time working with the group was a rousing success in terms of not only donations but also in terms of an example being set.
"It means everything to an organization like ours," Sarah Dobson, Feeding Northeast Florida's director of development, told JaguarReport when asked about Herndon's donation.
"During a time like this, we find that those who are most vulnerable, the people who are struggling to make ends meet already, are the ones who are hardest hit when something like this happens. So to have leaders in the community like Tre and like other members of the Jaguars to step forward and to work for the people with the greatest needs, it means so much."
Herndon decided to reach out to Feeding Northeast Florida specifically during this uncertain time because he wanted to do something to help a local community that he has become a part of since entering the NFL. He's done so for his past home communities, and now he has done it once more.
"Like I said, I want to expand my giving back. I had in mind doing another thing in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but with our team in Jacksonville doing that. I just wanted to try to be a part of another community that I’ve grown towards and grown to love being with the Jaguars," Herndon said.
