Phoenix — The Super Bowl has been known to gather all sorts of people when it comes to town. Celebrities and artists come either to watch or perform at the half time show but the stars of this major event are probably the football players themselves. Professionals and former professional football players as well as the coaches come to gather at the Super Bowl and most of them are grabbing the opportunity to make a difference and give back to the community.

One way for these players to give back is through the “Super Baskets of Hope” program. This program is all about giving gifts to children that have cancer and serious illnesses at hospitals to provide them with a reprieve of what they’re going through and bringing smiles to their faces. The process is placing age-appropriate toys, crafts and other goodies in a container basket and giving them to the sick kids at hospitals and their siblings.

Parents are also given their own special bag of items that are customized just for them because mothers and fathers are ‘the best encouragers of the children’ as Angela Brunette of Super Baskets of Hope had said.

Many different volunteers had personally delivered 250 baskets to the kids at Phoenix Children’s Hospital to honor the Super Bowl. These volunteers included Former NFL coach, Tony Dungy, Tony Alexander and Arizona Cardinals’ Mike Leach.

Dungy said that he has been doing this for 10 years now and that it started while he was coaching the Colts and Kurt Warner introduced him to the project. He said that not only is just to deliver toys to the cancer patients, but hope as well.

Mike Leach said that the community had been so good to them making him feel that it is their responsibility to do anything that they can to help people.

Tony Dungy also said that the whole project touches them, especially when the kids say thank you and that people still care about them. He also said that it does more to them than it does to the children.

Super Baskets of Hope is made possible through partnership with Vineyard Church and FedEx that ships about 4,000 baskets around the country.