The idea came to him while at a dinner celebrating Louisville, Kentucky, Trinity's 56-21 win over Lafayette in the state championship game earlier this month.
"I just realized how extremely blessed I am," Stephen Herron Jr. said, "so I told my mom I wanted to start S.J.'s Kids."
Herron — a 6-foot-4, 220-pound sophomore defensive end with scholarship offers from Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio State, Syracuse and Tennessee — simply wanted to find a way to help kids less fortunate than him, so he placed donation boxes around the city, not expecting much.
In just one week, though, S.J.'s Kids raised more than two truckloads of clothes for youth shelters in the Louisville area.
"We got enough to clothe every child in both shelters," Herron said.
Very few 16-year-olds have the ability to put someone else's wants and needs before their own, but Herron said S.J.'s Kids is just getting started. He plans to host football camps this summer and make the Christmas drive an annual event.
"I just want to make kids happy," Herron said.
If you'd like to support S.J.'s Kids, a non-profit foundation which helps abused, abandoned, neglected and at-risk youth in Kentuckiana through mentoring and sports, visit facebook.com/sjskids/.
