The fundraiser set up by J.J. Watt for Hurricane Harvey relief hit another milestone Friday night, surpassing the $30 million mark.
He reached $20 million on Tuesday, and had some rather large donations come through during the week, including $5 million from H-E-B Chairman and CEO Charles Butt and $1 million from Jimmy Fallon.
“Throughout this disaster, I have been humbled by the state’s unprecedented generosity and heroism,” Butt said in a statement. “I want to commend and support the extraordinary relief efforts of J.J. Watt who has taken the lead, not as a world-class NFL player or celebrity, but as an individual who saw the need to help his fellow Texans and immediately took action.”
Watt opened up to Good Morning America on Thursday about his decision to start the relief fund on Aug. 27.
He was sitting in his Dallas hotel room and first consulted with his mom and his girlfriend, pro soccer player Kealia Ohai, before creating the page.
“You feel helpless seeing water rush down streets that I drive down every day. I said, ‘How can I help?’” Watt explained.
“So, I started to think, I said, ‘I have this incredible platform, all this social media, all these followers. Let’s see if I can raise a little bit of money to help these people out. Try to get some relief efforts going.’ I just looked straight into the cell phone camera, started up a campaign, hoping to raise $200,000. Now we’re over $27 million.”
Watt has continuously stated that the money will be going directly to the people who have been affected by the flooding.
Sports Illustrated’s Robert Klemko spent some time “Behind the Scenes” with Watt in early September as he began to distribute supplies to those in need.
“Standing in a packed conference room at 6:30 p.m., Watt laid out the specifics of the plan: There would be food, water and sports drinks, and general supplies like kitchenware and candles,” Klemko wrote. “He preferred a drive-through arrangement, with Texans players and volunteers loading up cars as they came by. These aren’t the details you’d expect to see All-Pro defensive ends poring over a week before the start of the season.
10 semi trucks.
4 locations.
Countless incredible volunteers.
Just the beginning. pic.twitter.com/xmN40M4hFA— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) September 4, 2017
“And let’s make sure we cut off the lines once we start running out of supplies,” Watt told the room, “just being as proactive as we can so we don’t have angry people waiting for two hours and getting nothing.”
A lot has been achieved in two weeks, but there’s still much to be done. If you’d like to donate to Watt’s effort, you can do so here.