“For me, I feel it’s part of my job to give back to the community,” Carolina Panthers safety Charles Godfrey said. “I’ve been blessed to have the talents to play in the NFL and I think it’s my calling, that the reason I was put in this situation is to give back to the community and help people when I can.”
Godfrey is a man of faith, a man that believes he was meant to make it to big leagues so that he would be able to aid others. “God has been the biggest inspiration in my life,” he said. “Our relationship is great, and that is why I do what I do, because when he lays something on my heart I act on it. No questions, no ‘if’s’, ‘and’s’, or ‘but’s’.”
Godfrey is in just his fourth season in the league. He turned 26 years old last month. But he has put a more extreme effort towards helping others in that limited time frame than most do in a lifetime. He works with the YMCA in Charlotte, North Carolina, just one of many charitable ventures he has gotten involved with.
Godfrey incentivizes the students that he works with to try their hardest, rewarding them if they meet certain goals. He said, “I usually select around 30 kids to come to a couple games based on how they’re doing in school and also off the field, staying out of trouble. It gives them something to look forward to. We’re trying to motivate them to do the right thing and handle their schoolwork well.”
But Godfrey doesn’t want to be limited to just one form of philanthropy, which is why, he said, he hasn’t yet found something he wanted to start a foundation for. “It’s just not something I want to hop into and limit myself to one thing,” he said.
“If I find an area where I feel like it really, really has a need for me to start a foundation to benefit it I’ll do that. So far, it’s doing whatever is in my hard to do. I never want to limit how much I can give back.”
Godfrey is doing his best to provide help in a wide variety of areas. For example, he is thinking about saving a couple families’ holiday season. “This Christmas, I might adopt a couple families that wouldn’t be able to have a nice Christmas,” Godfrey said. “It’s in my character to help people out and I just want to show the appreciation for what I have accomplished by giving back.”
And he has accomplished a lot in his short career, making an impact immediately after being drafted in 2008 as he started all 16 games in his rookie season. He’s on pace for his most tackles in a season and he already has two interceptions, a sack, and a forced fumble, very possibly playing the best football of his four years in the NFL.
This coming Tuesday, December 13th, Godfrey along with teammate Sione Fua and others will join Toys for Tots to go on a shopping spree with kids from the YMCA Stratford-Richardson branch. The players will be at Toys ‘R Us Pineville from 6 to 7 p.m. and will purchase enough toys for every kid at the YMCA.
Fans are encouraged to go online and make a donation at www.toysfortots.org/touchdown, an initiative that gives Marines money to purchase toys for local children in need.