Tampa Bay Buccaneers Tight end Rob Gronkowski got word of a fire that broke out May 16 at Blake High School in Tampa. The fire destroyed an athletics storage shed filled with nearly all of the school’s football equipment. That included pads, field markers, pylons, tackling dummies and other game-day equipment — worth approximately $11,000, according to Tampa Fire Rescue — and the loss devastated the program.
“To the Blake High School Yellow Jackets, you’re getting a brand-new storage unit and new football equipment to replace everything that was lost,” Gronkowski said in a video posted by the Bucs on Twitter.
The school district planned to replace the equipment, but this donation allows those funds to be used elsewhere in what is expected to be a year of budget cuts due to the coronavirus pandemic.