Cal Sports Report

Aaron Rodgers Donates to Businesses in His Hometown of Chico

Former Cal star and Packers quarterback gives $1 million to small commercial enterprises in Butte County

Jake Curtis

Aaron Rodgers Donates to Businesses in His Hometown of Chico
Aaron Rodgers Donates to Businesses in His Hometown of Chico /

Former Cal star and current Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is giving back to his home town of Chico, Calif., and the Butte County Area during the financial hardships endured during the pandemic.

Rodgers donated $1 million to help 80 small, locally owned businesses in his hometown of Chico and surrounding areas, according to a story posted by the Packers on their website.

You may recall that Rodgers attended Pleasant Valley High School in Chico, and when he got no scholarship offers from Division I colleges he played a season at Butte (Community) College. It was while then-Cal coach Jeff Tedford went to a Butte College practice to take a look at tight end Garret Cross that Tedford noticed the Butte quarterback who looked pretty impressive. Tedford found out the quarterback’s name was Aaron Rodgers.

Rodgers won his third NFL MVP award in 2020, and may have his contract restructured to help the Packers’ salary-cap problems, but he still has enough to provide grants to Chico-area businesses to help cover rent for, on average, three months or longer and other operational costs.

The project is called the Aaron Rodgers Small-Business COVID-19 Fund at North Valley Community Foundation in Chico. The grants will total more than $1 million.

Nine of the business owners were notified personally by Rodgers and NVCF President and CEO Alexa Benson-Valavanis in video calls, which can be viewed on Rodgers' Instagram account.

Here is a compilation of those interactions:

"Small, locally owned businesses are the heart and soul of a community," said Rodgers in a statement provided by the Packers. "In the applications and the videos, it was heart-wrenching to hear about all the obstacles facing restaurants and retail establishments. So many of them are struggling just to stay in business but remain hopeful that there's an end to this."

Rodgers tweet on the project:

Rodgers had earlier donated $1 million to Camp Fire recovery through a fund at NVCF that eventually raised more than $3 million for relief following the Camp Fire that ravaged Butte County in November 2018.

You may recall that a large financial gift by Rodgers helped Cal renovate its football locker room in 2019.

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Cover photo of Aaron Rodgers by Rick Wood via Imagn Content Services, LLC

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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