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Greenway assists with flood relief in Iowa CityGreenway assists with flood relief in Iowa City
Football

Greenway assists with flood relief in Iowa City

July 18, 2008

IOWA CITY, Iowa — During his playing days at the University of Iowa, Chad Greenway was twice named all-Big Ten at linebacker after posting 416 tackles. He would be the first to admit that he needed help from others to reach his goals and be successful.

Greenway, about to enter his third season as linebacker with the Minnesota Vikings, received an assist from more than 20 current UI football players, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, Vikings cheerleaders, Vikings fans and interested community members Friday, July 18, during a cleanup effort at city park on East Park Road in Iowa City.

“You see these people who are still out here working with the cleanup,” Greenway said. “You don’t see CNN or Fox News covering it anymore. For (hurricane) Katrina, there was ongoing support for months and months. This isn’t on that same stage, but at the same time, there are a lot of people affected. Since this is later than when the flood took place, it’s going to be able to keep this going and you see the people and the support is still coming out, which is amazing even after a month.”

Quietly and consistently, a stream of current Hawkeyes filed into the park to assist with raking debris, carrying downed limbs and scattered trash to a refuse truck or removing sand bags. The list of Hawkeyes included Tyler Blum, Rob Bruggeman, Jake Christensen, Dan Doering, Ryan Donahue, Rafael Eubanks, Mitch King, Matt Kroul, Nick Kuchel, Andy Kuempel, Marvin McNutt, Travis Meade, Tony Moeaki, Anton Narinskiy, Tyler Nielsen, Paki O’Meara, Jared Oberland, Colin Sandeman, Andrew Schulze, Austin Signor, Kyle Spading and Trey Stross.

“We’re just trying to help out Iowa City and the community,” Moeaki said. “This park got it pretty bad from the flood. It’s good to see everyone out here helping. We all thought it was pretty cool that Chad was coming down here. He was a great player here. Now he’s playing football in Minnesota, so for him to make time to come down here and help out is obviously a really nice thing to do.”

Following the cleanup efforts, Wilf and Greenway presented a $30,000 contribution from the Vikings, the Wilf Family and Greenway’s Lead the Way Foundation to the United Way of Johnson County Flood Relief Fund.

The volunteer effort was also important to Greenway’s wife, Jenni (Capista), who was a middle distance/distance runner in track and cross country at Iowa.

“I saw pictures, but I had no idea how bad it really was,” Jenni Greenway said. “You really can’t imagine it until you come here and see it. I used to train on this path all the time. We would leave the Rec Center, come down by Carver-Hawkeye Arena, come out on this path and finish up. Oh my gosh, the water’s so high. I also saw that the track is gone. It’s hard to see that. The track team at Iowa is really up and coming right now, so hopefully this doesn’t put a damper on anything for them.”

“We have many ties to this community,” Chad Greenway added. “When you go to school here 4 ½ years and my wife ran track and cross country here…for us, we wanted to help any way we could. This today is an inch in a mile, but you have to help at some point. There is a long way to go. You can feel what these people are feeling and what they’re going through. That’s why the support is so huge. It’s amazing to see how people rally together.”

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