Jalen Hurts steps up again for Philly schools with $600K donation for air conditioning
After donating $200,000 for AC units in 2024, the Eagles quarterback is making his foundation’s largest gift yet.
Jalen Hurts is used to hearing thousands of people cheering and chanting his name on Sundays. On Tuesday, the thousands cheering for him were inside a Philadelphia-area high school that had gone months without air conditioning.
Hurts announced a $600,000 donation from the Jalen Hurts Foundation to Northeast High School, all with the intention of upgrading the school’s HVAC system as it is one of 52 district schools in the greater Philadelphia region that does not have working AC.
“Something that started three years ago watching the morning news on an off day,” Hurts explained to reporters about the initial news report that spured his gift to the school. “Growing up in the South, I was very blown away about school being canceled not for snow, not for hurricane or for a tropical storm, but for a lack of AC. It’s a common thing that I didn’t think about when I went to my elementary school, my middle school or my high school. So I just want to pay it forward.”
More than 1,000 students, teachers and staff attended the presentation in the school’s auditorium and the $600,000 is the largest donation made by the Hurts Foundation to date.
Hurts cited his parents, both of who are educators as the reasoning behind his donation and helping out the school’s students and teachers.
Among those in attendance was School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Wattington, who underscored the battle many publci schools in the area are dealing with.
“When you watched that program, I don’t know which network, there were 118 of the district’s schools that didn’t have AC,” he said, later crediting Hurts and Phialdelphia Mayor Cherrelle Parker for raising awareness about the problem.
The $600,000 is the second such donation for Hurts and his foundation to address the problem. In 2024, he donated $200,000 to buy 300 air conditioning units for10 Philadelphia area schools.