J.J. Watt Donated $10,000 To Family Of Firefighter Killed By Explosion

Ryan Mayer

Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt was named the NFL's 2017 Walter Payton award winner for his charitable efforts off the field after Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston area last fall. Watt has continued his community outreach, recently donating $10,000 to the family of a Wisconsin firefighter who was killed in an explosion.

Cody Barr, a captain in the Sun Prairie Volunteer Fire Department, was killed when a breached gas main led to an explosion Tuesday night that damaged several buildings in the town. The 34-year-old Barr is survived by a wife and two young girls and the Bethlehem Lutheran Church organized a GoFundMe campaign to support the family. A member of the community reached out to Watt on Twitter about the campaign and the NFL star came through.

The campaign has already blown past it's original goal of $15,000 and has continued to surpass the goal each time it's been raised. Currently, the campaign has already surpassed $111,000 raised.

This is just Watt's latest act of community outreach as earlier this year, he paid for the funerals of the victims of the high school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas.