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Buffalo Bills Fans Donate To Charity Favored By Baltimore Ravens QB

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

For the first time in 27 years, the Buffalo Bills are within a game of the Super Bowl. They will play in football's AFC Championship Game.

NOEL KING, HOST:

Right. The Bills beat the Baltimore Ravens, who didn't score a single touchdown on Saturday. Now, that's a hard loss for Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. He got a concussion in the second half of the game.

INSKEEP: Some Bills fans wanted to cheer up the Ravens quarterback, so they did some research. Jackson played college football in Louisville, Ky., where he worked with the charity Blessings in a Backpack.

KING: That organization works with kids whose families don't have enough food, and so they rely on schools. But COVID-19 closed the schools, so getting meals to kids is not as simple as it used to be. So the charity has adapted.

NIKKI GRIZZLE: Our volunteers are the root of our organization. They're the heart of our organization, and they've gotten creative. And we are just determined to feed kids any way that we possibly can.

INSKEEP: Nikki Grizzle works at the nonprofit and says that Lamar Jackson of the Ravens still volunteers with them.

GRIZZLE: He is just the nicest guy with the biggest heart.

KING: And Buffalo fans are flooding the charity with donations to honor him.

GRIZZLE: Who knew that the Bills Mafia, the Bills fan base, were this amazing, thoughtful, philanthropic crew of fans.

INSKEEP: So it's kind of obvious who Nikki will be rooting for in the AFC Championship Game.

GRIZZLE: We do not have an NFL team here, but we are now all Bills fans.

(SOUNDBITE OF SAM SPENCE'S "RAINBOWS TO THE END ZONE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.