Je'Rod Cherry raffles Super Bowl ring for world hunger

From Peter King's MMQB. I just bought a few tix. I hope I win so I can donate the ring back to Je'Rod Cherry. Let's go, SportsJournalists.com, we can afford a few raffle tickets:

Good Guy of the Week

Je'Rod Cherry, former defensive back, New England. Cherry, who played for New England, Philadelphia and New Orleans in a nine-year NFL career, is raffling his 2001 Patriots Super Bowl ring on Nov. 27 to raise money for children's charities around the world. "I was moved by some pictures I saw of a child in Africa on his deathbed, and in the background waiting was a vulture, in essence, to consume him,'' said Cherry, who lives in Ohio now. "What I saw there moved me to say, 'What can I do to make a difference?' What can I give sacrificially from myself to show I do have care and concern about this child's predicament as well as other organizations that help people across the world?''

Cherry says he cherishes the ring, and played football 21 years to get to the pinnacle of the profession. "But using this ring to help children who are starving ... and who have no hope will be a greater feeling than what I felt the day I actually won the ring.''

He's raffling the ring instead of auctioning it so all fans would have a chance to win it, not just the richest ones. Five tickets cost $10, and can be purchased at netraffle.org. Deadline for purchase is Nov. 27 at 9 a.m.

"After the decision to do the raffle was made,'' Cherry told me Saturday, "I said, 'Wow. I'm actually going to relinquish this ring.' It's not going to be easy. Before that season, I'd played football all my life, but I never won a championship. My high school team won one league game in Berkeley [Calif.]. I went to Cal. I started my career with the Saints, and we never won there.''

He got to the Patriots with the middle-class free-agency class of 2001, and as I reminded Cherry, that first Super Bowl team was a bunch of Je'Rod Cherries. It's fitting he won the ring with a bunch of blue-collar players like him.

Cherry's disappointed with the raffle kitty so far -- it's approaching $75,000 -- but he hopes even if the proceeds aren't what he hopes for, "I may spur someone who hears about this or reads about a person giving up such a prized possession to do something for others.''

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YouTube video about it here:

 

I wish there could be a ban on the words "blue" and "collar" appearing together in any story that isn't about a factory or a construction site.

 

I just bought 20 tickets.

 

Great story...Cherry was a good special teams player.

 

Yes.

I'm sure there will be people who will ridicule him, but I'd ask them, "What have you done about world hunger?"

Thanks for posting that.

 

How can you criticize him for that?

Incredibly classy move.

 

That's tremendous. Good for him and hopefully more folks pony up.

 

What sucks is this guy is taking something that means a lot to him. Yet his donation won't even make a dent in the problem.