Warrick Dunn still giving to back to community after NFL career

With all the negative news surrounding professional football players, it's always good to find a way to focus on the positive. And there really are a lot of public personalities doing good work within the community.

We mainly hear about Russell Wilson's community work in Seattle and what Tim Tebow has done while using his faith as a guide to help those in need.

Here's a relatively unknown story of a former NFL star that has continued to give back to the community since he retired from the league back in 2008.

Warrick Dunn, who starred for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons during an impressive 12-year career that saw him put up over 15,000 total yards, is making a major difference in the lives of single parents.

The Warrick Dunn Charities provided its 144th home to a single-parent family this week — a family that lost lost its home in Hurricane Sandy back in 2012.

In partnership with Debartolo Family Foundation, who also worked with former Buccaneers linebacker Derrick Brooks to build a non-profit public charter school for low-income children to prepare for college, Dunn's charities continue to do some amazing work for those less fortunate.

This has been something dear to Dunn's heart for some time now. He became the head of his family's household at the age of 18 when his mother, a police officer, was shot and killed during a robbery. He took that tragic incident to start the process of helping others inflicted by the calamities that come up in life. It's also a responsibility he feels came with the stardom of being a NFL player.

"Because I have been able to build a reputation as a talented player, I have been able to build futures," Dunn wrote in his autobiography, Running for My Life. "Because I am able to play, I am able to make a difference. Because I have been blessed with a talent, I also have been given a responsibility."

Beginning in 1997, Dunn's rookie season with Tampa Bay, his charities have provided $2.5 million in aide to those in need of help throughout the United States.

As a minority owner of the Falcons, Dunn has an opportunity to continue painting the NFL in a better light than we have seen in the past. Up to this point, it's an opportunity that he has run with.

More than that, his altruistic mentality has been a godsend to so many needy families throughout the nation. We need one of these good stories every once in a while. Our respect and admiration goes out to Dunn for doing what he can to make the lives of his fellow citizens that much better.

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