No Biggie. Just Mr. Kraft Casually Sending Dozens of Healthcare Workers to the Super Bowl Aboard AirKraft One

Jerry Thornton2/03/2021 8:10 PM

Patriots.com - Ten months after sending the New England Patriots team plane to China to secure and retrieve desperately needed PPE for healthcare workers, the Kraft family was once again moved by a desire to support the frontline heroes who have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic.

On Sunday, Feb. 7, the Patriots plane will again be filled for a unique purpose, this time with a patriotic 76 vaccinated healthcare workers representing all six New England states. As guests of the Kraft family, these healthcare "superheroes" will be granted an all-expenses paid trip to Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Fla., including roundtrip travel on the Patriots team plane.

I'm sorry. Did I mention Mr. Kraft is giving these heroic frontline workers a ride to Tampa on his plane? My bad. In an effort to keep the headline from being a run-on sentence I left out the part that this is an all expenses paid trip. Like a grand prize package on "The Price is Right," only much more so. Round trip on a private tricked out jumbo jet. Tickets to the game. Meals and hotel no doubt part of the equation.

No wonder this medical professional dropped a cuss word when she got the call.

Times like these do more than build character. They reveal character. Some billionaires have been immune from all this. Some have hold up in their gated mansions, their penthouse suites, their luxury yachts and their vacation homes in parts of the world left relatively untouched by the plague, not giving a tinker's damn about the people leading this fight. Some in Washington and on Wall Street have even used their power and influence to profit from this at the expense of the average working person.

But Mr. Kraft has been in the corner of the people who've put themselves in harm's way from Minute One. Flying 1.7 million masks back from China when they were needed most. At his own expense. A complicated operation that required massive amounts of coordination, planning, and cooperation between competing governments. Then delivering 300,000 of those to New York City in its most desperate hour. A mission for which he was actually criticized by the newspaper run by another billionaire sports owner in town for being inadequate:

And now he's reaching out personally to the best among us to show gratitude for all they've been risking and sacrificing for the greater good. I'd say these 76 highly deserving souls are lucky to be chosen. But we are all the lucky ones to have them. And to have a man living among us who chooses to continuously give back to the community he has helped so much already. And on a personal note, I'm grateful for all the vaccinated healthcare workers in my life, beginning with the best sister any guy ever had and my beloved Irish Rose's best friend. And mostly, I'm grateful to have a close, personal friend who appreciates what these heroes have done as well. Speaking for all of New England, I say thanks, RKK.