Derrick Henry loves returning to his hometown and giving back to the local community.
The Baltimore Ravens running back and Yulee, a Florida native, came home on Saturday to host Two All Carnival, an extra special event for about 200 local children.
The festivities included rides and sports and a giveaway of bicycles, scooters, and skateboards. Henry also gifted backpacks filled with school supplies for the upcoming year.
“I just remember when I was a kid coming up here for opening day, this ballpark was packed, full of kids,” Henry said to the audience.
“We were playing wall ball, basketball, on the playground. So I kind of want to bring that feeling back here.”
Henry also provided autographs for some of the luckier kids in attendance.
“Back in the day, it was a small-knit community,” a local resident named Devaney Deberry told First Coast News.
“It’s growing now, of course. Derrick does play a major part of that because everyone knows Yulee because of him.”
Henry did indeed bring a lot of national attention to Yulee during his high school football career.
He rushed for 12,124 yards in four seasons with the Yulee Hornets, breaking the national high school career record.
Henry’s hometown borders the Florida-Georgia line, and it’s located in a very historical part of the country. The area is known as the “First Coast,” and the name is derived from a 1980s marketing campaign, referencing how northeast Florida was the first region of the United States to be colonized by Europeans.
The First Coast includes St. Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the continental U.S. It was founded by Spanish explorers in 1565.