Greg Huegel’s season has not gone as planned.
A torn ACL has sidelined the Clemson kicker for the rest of the year, but that won’t stop him from being a great teammate to more than just members of his football team.
After Friday night’s first road loss since 2014, Clemson had to come home with a plan to refocus during its bye week. The Tigers have a lot of questions to answer about themselves and a lot of mistakes to correct over the next two weeks off the field.
But for a few hours Tuesday afternoon, wins, losses and football didn’t matter.
The Clemson football team took part in a community service project partnering with the Golden Harvest Food Bank to help provide food to families that are in need.
The inaugural event was put together by the PAW Journey, and Huegel is an ambassador for the project.
“We’re blessed, and we’re trying to be a blessing for people as well,” Huegel said smiling. He had just hobbled over on his crutches, taking a break from packing food items into bags.
Huegel was working at the backpacking station. The station packed backpacks full of food for kids at schools in Pickens and Oconee County who struggle to eat on the weekends in their households.
Each bag consists of cereal, milk, fruit, and other foods.
Thanks to this station, 864 children will have food to eat this weekend that they didn’t have before.
Outside of the indoor practice facility, 300 families began to line up at the doors. They are from the local area and can’t provide much food for their families either.
Members of the team led by head coach Dabo Swinney filled boxes to the brim with a variety of food and carried them to their cars so that they can have a little more than they did before.
Although no one knows what those families’ lives are like once they leave the facility, the atmosphere was lighthearted and full of positivity all afternoon.
“Guys don’t realize what they are blessed with and the opportunities that they have in their life,” Huegel said. “Taking two hours out of our day on a bye week to help out people in need is very eye-opening.”
On the other side of the facility stood Travis McNeal, Executive Director of Golden Harvest Food Bank. He was wearing a grey t-shirt that said “Impact” with “act” bolded.
The goal of the day was to create an “impact moment” inside the practice facility for the team and members of the community.
He had been trying to develop a relationship with Clemson the past several years. The team had been working with Habitat for Humanity to help a family in the community the past few years, but this year wanted to do something a little different.
The Golden Harvest Food Bank provided Clemson football with a golden opportunity.
When the PAW Journey reached out to McNeal, the food bank “began to dream.”
“(PAW Journey) gave us the goals of what they wanted to do,” McNeal said. “They wanted to give their students something that really made an impact on the community that we really needed them for. We had just the right thing.”
Golden Harvest distributes 17.4 millions pounds of food, which equals about 15 million meals a year. 50 percent of that 17 million pounds of food gets allocated in South Carolina.
McNeal said that Golden Harvest Food Bank does these types of events as a food bank every weekend.
But this experience with the Clemson football team turned out to be “one of the most fabulous volunteering experiences” Golden Harvest has ever had.
“To have this impact on these students and for them to learn something – just a nugget – about hunger and maybe the need in this area, that’s what excites us,” McNeal beamed.
“It’s life-changing.”
To learn more about Golden Harvest Food Bank's mission, visit their website: https://goldenharvest.org
