Warrick Dunn’s Homes for the Holidays Started in Tampa in 1997

In 1997, his first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Warrick Dunn started a program called Homes for the Holidays. It helps single parents buy a first home, putting money toward the down payment and furnishing the house down to the toothbrushes and a stocked pantry. More than 250 families have moved in since.

Why Single Parents

Dunn grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, raised by his mother, Betty Smothers, a Baton Rouge police officer. She was killed in January 1993 while working an off-duty security job, when he was eighteen. The program is his tribute to her.

Tallahassee and Tampa

He played running back at Florida State from 1993 through 1996, and the Buccaneers took him 12th overall in the 1997 draft. Homes for the Holidays began in Tampa that same year and has since reached families in other cities.