Coach and Football Team Make National Headlines for Serving Others

The actions of a coach of a Pennsylvania high school football team and its members have made national headlines over their acts of loving their neighbors and service to their community following a snowstorm.

Loving and serving your neighbors in action

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

–1 Peter 4:10

We all can learn a lesson about loving our neighbors and serving our community from this Pennsylvania coach and high school football team.

The actions of Coach Brian DeLallo and the Bethel Park High School football team have gone viral, with their story making national headlines with every major and even minor local news station over their actions on Martin Luther King Jr. Day following a weekend snowstorm.

CBS reported that coach DeLallo canceled football practice and a weightlifting session and told his team they needed to shovel snow to clear driveways for the elderly, disabled, and those in need.

“Due to expected severe weather, Monday’s weightlifting workout has been canceled,” coach DeLallo wrote on Twitter. “Find an elderly or disabled neighbor and shovel their driveway. Don’t accept any money – that’s our Monday workout.”

“You get a lot more out of this than ‘did you bench press 300 pounds today?’ This is really cool,” Coach DeLallo told his team in an email. “It’s a chance to connect with the community and you don’t get many of those, so this is nice.”

According to the Washington Post, roughly 41 team members put on snow gear and took the coach’s assignment seriously.

An answer to a prayer

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

–Galatians 6:2

One older woman, Pearl Moss, 74, looked out her front window at nearly a foot of snow blocking her driveway, with more on the way, the Washington Post reported.

“I thought, ‘What am I going to do?” Moss said, who is recovering from shoulder surgery and had no family members nearby to help her dig out. “There’s no way I can get out there and shovel myself out.'”

Her prayer was answered. A few hours later, there was a knock at her door. Two teenage boys, David Shelpman, 16, and Aidan Campbell, 17, stood on her porch with shovels.

“I couldn’t believe it — they were going to shovel me out,” she said. “And they didn’t want a single penny to do it.”

Do good works and inspire others

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”

–Hebrews 10:24

For decades, helping out snowed-in neighbors has been a tradition for Bethel High School’s football team, coach DeLallo said. He gave credit to another coach who was at the school 25 years before him as the idea’s originator.

It’s a lesson we all can learn from, not just during snowstorms, but for all occasions, and all circumstances, for helping all people in need.