2 days ago
Patriots' Hunter Henry goes long during the offseason to make a difference
His involvement culminated this past March, when he and his wife, Parker, visited Nairobi to get an up-close look at the organization's impact. They spoke with survivors of sexual violence, hosted a soccer match for local leaders, and learned about the systemic issues plaguing the city's police department.
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'They've been involved from afar with the work and supported it financially, and now they were able to go and sit down and have lunch with survivors of sexual violence and hear the stories first-hand,' said Boston College grad Mark Herzlich, who works full time for IJM after his seven-year NFL career.
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'You don't have much time in the offseason. When you have your couple of weeks where you're really off and you take one of those weeks to go to a different country — not for vacation purposes but to do service work — that's pretty impressive. It wasn't just a drop in the bucket type thing for them, like, 'Hey, let's just, on a whim, go to Africa.' "
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The conversations with survivors of sexual violence resonated with Henry, who was especially struck by their joy despite difficult circumstances. In one story, a father had to quit his job on a farm because his boss was sexually abusing his daughter. The decision left the family with nowhere to live, no income, and little access to food.
'To see the true joy they had, with everything they had gone through in their life and, honestly, it was a lot of bad stuff,' Henry said. 'Things hadn't gone their way. Life threw a lot at them. And I feel like they were still so happy and so joyful.
'You see the stories and stuff, but to actually meet the people. I mean, they're real. These stories are about real people. We can get comfortable with where we're at in life in a lot of ways, so it definitely tugged a lot on my heart over there, like, what more can I do? What more can I do to help these people?'
Parker Henry (right), the wife of Patriots tight end Hunter Henry, plays with a girl during the family's recent trip to Kenya with International Justice Mission.
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Henry doesn't know the answer to that question just yet. He has some ideas, including returning to Kenya one day, representing IJM during the NFL's annual 'My Cause, My Cleats' initiative, and organizing a local event to raise awareness and additional money.
The visit certainly illuminated to him how a seemingly small idea can make a tangible difference.
For example, he saw how IJM and residents were able to repurpose a shipping container as a safe haven for victims, allowing them to report crimes as well as receive counseling. The container is split into rooms for waiting, interviewing, and observation — all spaces that the majority of the local police stations do not offer.
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'Some of the police stations were very underfunded,' Henry said. 'Some of them just met under a tree. There wasn't an actual building. And some of them were just one building, a small building, and everything was done in one building.
'It was pretty cool to see something as simple as a shipping container — that's literally all it was — can be used to make a big impact. It just provided a space for people to come report things and work through what they were going through.'
As Henry continues to figure out what more he can do, he'll keep in mind the impact that whatever comes next doesn't necessarily have to be a grand gesture to be meaningful.
'As far as giving your time and giving your money, something so small can go so far over there,' he said. 'You can think, like, 'Whatever, this isn't that big of a deal,' but it is a big deal over there. Little things can go so much farther over there.'
Nicole Yang can be reached at
