TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — All around Julio Jones was a celebration of possibility, hope and prosperity. Destruction and loss, though, weighed heavily on his heart.
Jones was at the NFL draft in New York when he first heard about the tornado that tore through Tuscaloosa on April 27.
“I think somebody texted me or something,” he said.
Jones, whom the Falcons made the sixth overall pick the following day, kept hearing from friends about the twister that took more than 230 lives in his home state and left thousands homeless. In a conversation with Alabama coach Nick Saban, “I was like, ‘We’ve got to do something to give back to the community,’” Jones said.
Jones’ compassion led him back to Tuscaloosa on Thursday, where he tossed boxes out of a stuffy box truck, handed out synthetic T-shirts and tried to lift the spirits of downtrodden tornado victims.
The newest Falcon showed his hands do more than receive.
“It’s been a great day to put smiles on people’s faces and just giving them something they can use,” Jones said.
Jones sat on a folding chair in a shopping center in the Alberta City neighborhood of Tuscaloosa, which was serving as a Red Cross distribution center for tornado victims. He wore a red-and-white Red Cross bib. Up and down the mall, plywood covered blown-out window frames and shards of glass covered the walkway. Within a few miles of the mall, hundreds of homes and businesses lay damaged or leveled by the tornado.
“It’s just devastating, just going around seeing it,” Jones said.
He repeated the lessons he learned as a boy growing up in Foley, Ala., which was hit by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Ivan. The former damaged his home and left his family without power for several days.
“Stay up, be positive and everything will get turned around,” Jones said.
Jones was doing his part. He lined up Under Armour, with whom he signed a shoe deal, to donate 17,000 pieces of apparel — mostly shirts, pants, socks, shorts and underwear — and also send about a dozen employees to help distribute them. He also enlisted former Crimson Tide teammates Marcell Dareus (the third overall pick of the draft, to Buffalo), Rashad Johnson (now with Arizona) and Brandon Deaderick (New England) to help.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he came back and did that,” said Jill Lancaster, who coordinates outreach for the Alabama athletic department and often called on Jones to visit schools or meet with ailing children. “That’s totally within his character.”
Jones happily contributed, loading up boxes with a pallet truck at a Birmingham warehouse, unloading them in Tuscaloosa and taking pictures with volunteers and tornado victims. (Jones’s preferred pose is a smile and a thumbs up.) He goofed around with people picking up clothes and Alabama National Guard troops monitoring the distribution site.
“Can I have a couple of shirts?” asked an elderly gentleman. “Yes, sir. What size?” responded the soon-to-be millionaire.
Tuscaloosa residents walked away sometimes with hundreds of dollars of apparel.
“I can’t believe they’re doing this for everyone,” said Heather Gregory, who lost her nearby rental home in the tornado and was living out of a rental car.
Astin Godwin, a Red Cross volunteer from Fayetteville, called it a “morale boost to the community.”
Said Jones, “We’re just trying to make those people feel happy, feel loved out here.”
