This week JJ Watt, Defensive End for the Houston Texans, posted a fundraiser to the website youcaring.com that has rocketed up into the millions of dollars in a record amount of time.
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It started on Sunday when Watt posted this video to Facebook:
Watt made the first donation of $100,000. His original goal was $250,000, which he reached within a few hours. He then upped the goal to $500,000, and that was met within 24 hours.
Watt posted updates throughout the day on Tuesday as the donations continued to pour in.
Several prominent figures in the sports world contributed. Tennessee Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk donated $1 million, and Houston Rockets point guard Chris Paul threw in $50,000.
The generosity made waves in the music industry as well. Rap artist Drake donated $200,000, and singer Miley Cyrus chipped in $500,000.
READ MORE: How You Can Help Hurricane Harvey Victims
With each big fundraising jump, Watt raised the fundraiser goal, first to one million, then five million.
Ellen DeGeneres partnered with Walmart to donate another $1 million last night, and Watt raised the bar to $10 million. As of this morning, he has already surpassed that goal.
The fundraiser even caught the attention of Dan Saper, Youcaring CEO. Saper posted that traffic to the page has been overwhelming and that donors may find the website to run a bit slow because of it.
"The response here has been surreal. Due to everyone's overwhelming generosity and the amount of traffic going to this page, you may experience intermittent donation issues," Saper commented on the fundraiser.
Watt announced that the money raised will go directly to aid for hurricane victims. In a video posted this morning, he stated that trucks of supplies are already being filled.
The Texans were in Dallas when Harvey hit. The team had traveled there in anticipation of a Thursday night preseason game against the Cowboys. Instead, they were stuck watching the disaster unfold online and on TV, out of reach of their families and loved ones.
On Wednesday officials announced that a safe route home was open, and the game would be canceled so as to get the team back home as soon as possible.
The proceeds from the preseason game were supposed to go to hurricane relief, but the money will be refunded to ticket holders. Instead, according to ESPN, the McNair family (who owns the Texans) will be making a donation "equal to the money that would have been generated from ticket sales."
Watt is among several celebrities raising money for the hurricane relief effort. Chris Young started a Gofundme page that has so far raised over $300,000 for the American Red Cross.
If you want to contribute to JJ Watt's fundraiser, click here.
