NFL Linebacker Bobby Wagner Buys Groceries for Lines of Customers at Grocery Store
Hundreds of last-minute shoppers in Seattle received a sweet surprise when Seahawks Linebacker Bobby Wagner spontaneously decided to pay for their grocery bills.
Wagner was at a Seattle Safeway packing Thanksgiving dinner supplies for Low Income Housing Institute’s tiny house villages on Tuesday.
The organization “develops, owns and operates housing for the benefit of low-income, homeless and formerly homeless people in Washington State,” according to its website.
Last summer Wagner asked LIHI for a wish list from each tiny house village, which even included larger items such as a refrigerator, and visited the sites to deliver the items.
According to The Seattle Times, he also purchased nine tiny homes to help the expansion of the program.
As Wagner thought about ways to support the villages on Thanksgiving, he wanted to make sure everyone had a meal — even those who lived in sites that didn’t already have plans.
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So he went to a local Safeway to purchase supplies, but while he was there he recognized another opportunity to help those around him.
“It was spur of the moment,’’ La Shanda Hurst, who helps Wagner with some of his philanthropic efforts, said. “He was like ‘I’m doing this for these people in this one community, why don’t I do something for the people living in this community right now and make their holiday a little brighter?’’’
Wagner told the store that he would pay for everyone’s grocery bills who went through the line while he was there packing Thanksgiving meals for the tiny house villages — it lasted for about 30 minutes.
The NFL player normally prefers to keep his charitable acts anonymous, but he couldn’t avoid it this time.
“It’s from the heart. I don’t really care if people see that I do it or notice that I do it or even recognize that it’s me doing it,” Wagner said, according to The Seattle Times. “I just do it because I feel like there’s a lot of people out there that need a hand, and I try to lend a hand.
“I don’t really want acknowledgement or want people to pat me on the back or whatever. I just want to help the people I feel like I can help and if there’s an opportunity where I feel like I can help, I do it.’’
A group of high school students immediately recognized him and began documenting the moment on social media, but Wagner didn’t want them to miss the opportunity to get free items so he told them to go shop.
“The kids came up after they got a bunch of junk,’’ Wagner said, during a news conference. “They came up and said, ‘thank you.’ So that was pretty cool.”
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