Tim Duncan is matching $1 million in Virgin Islands hurricane relief donations

Tim Duncan doesn’t speak out much, but there are occasionally moments that he feels compelled to say something. Hurricane Irma struck the U.S. Virgin Islands earlier on Friday, which was Duncan’s home growing up. Duncan has already donated $250,000 to hurricane relief efforts, and in a post for The Player’s Tribune, he’s planning to match up to $1 million in donations.

Here’s the donation link, which has already raised nearly $300,000 as of writing this.

In the post, Duncan shared the story of Hurricane Hugo, a Category 5 storm that struck the Virgin Islands in 1989 when Duncan was 13 years old. This paragraph is almost haunting.

Hugo hit at night. The first thing I remember is a loud boom from the windows blowing out of our house. My mother and sister burst into my bedroom and led me by the hand into another room. We spent the rest of the night sitting in a small bathroom, our eyes wide open. None of us could sleep. We heard the bangs and booms of debris. Once in a while, I’d peek down the hallway at my dad, who was watching our ceiling. One of the beams had a crack in it, and the crack slowly grew bigger throughout the night. I think my dad was praying.

Duncan and his family were safe, but the island struggled to recover. The same thing is bound to happen once again due to Irma, which has shattered records as the biggest hurricane ever recorded.

Many of us have donated money for Hurricane Harvey and the Houston flooding, but the best thing we do as humans is rally around others who need our help. The Virgin Islands need that, and so will the other people in Irma’s path. Here’s the link again if you are able to donate.