Tim Duncan, the five-time NBA champion, issued a plea for help Saturday for the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Caribbean islands where he grew up that got recently got slammed by Hurricane Irma.
In a letter posted on the Players Tribune, the basketball star wrote that he had donated $250,000 to relief efforts and would match up to $1 million in donations to aid the islands.
“Islands like ours tend to get forgotten after storms,” Duncan wrote. “We’re remote, which makes it hard to deliver supplies quickly, cheaply, and adequately.”
He added that he plans to charter a flight from San Antonio to St. Croix to bring supplies as soon as the weather allows.
In his letter, Duncan recalled the devastation wrought on St. Croix by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, when he was 13, and the difference that relief efforts made to him then.
So far, at least 20 people have been killed in the Caribbean because of Irma, according to USA Today.
Growing up on St. Croix, Duncan was a promising swimmer. After Hugo destroyed the pool he practiced in, however, he turned his attention to basketball. After starring at Wake Forest, he went on to play his entire professional career with the San Antonio Spurs.
