NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Vanderbilt University football players took a break from summer training to help local students prepare for the upcoming school year.
Together with local non-profit PENCIL, they packed thousands of backpacks with school supplies for Metro Nashville Public Schools.
PENCIL is an organization that has supported MNPS since the 1980s.
"Everybody remembers getting the smell of crayons, getting their first glue stick," said Joel Wright from PENCIL.
The players worked for about two hours, efficiently assembling thousands of backpacks in assembly-line fashion.
"These are going out to every Cluster Bash, about 15-16 different sites across the city, they'll be given out," Wright said.
The initiative aims to provide necessary school supplies to thousands of Nashville students before the new school year begins.
Their goal is to pack 10,000 bags.
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Senior linebacker Nick Rinaldi and his teammates quickly developed a system for packing the backpacks efficiently.
"Yeah, this is about an hour and a half in, so it's muscle memory at this point," Rinaldi said.
By the end of the event, the team had packed approximately 5,000 to 6,000 backpacks, though the exact count was difficult to track given their rapid pace. Others came in after the players to pack the remaining bags and supplies.
"I think we got about five or six thousand," Rinaldi said. "We're trying to count, but we lost track."
The Commodores begin their football season in five weeks, but this community service event showed they're already working as a team off the field.
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This is a story I immediately went home and showed my boys - young athletes with big dreams. The Vanderbilt football team's success has stolen the spotlight - what I love about Steve Layman's story is he reveals the individual hardships it took to get there. As Clark Lea says, "we all have scuff marks." This team proves perseverance pays off!
- Carrie Sharp
