Redskins player Pierre Garçon heads to Haiti on team owner Dan Snyder’s private jet

Washington Redskins wide receiver Pierre Garçon. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

Washington Redskins wide receiver Pierre Garçon is spending his downtime between games doing humanitarian work.

On Monday, Garçon and teammate Ricky Jean Francois, both of Haitian descent, flew to the island nation on Redskins owner Daniel Snyder’s private jet to deliver and distribute medical supplies to the area ravaged by Hurricane Matthew. To date, the Category 4 storm is believed to have caused more than 1,000 deaths in Haiti since making landfall Tuesday.

“I knew that we needed to get hands-on to help out,” Garcon told the Post. “We are on the ground now, delivering medical supplies from the Washington Redskins training room to Project Medishare for Haiti, an organization that is near and dear to me.”

Garçon is no stranger to the devastation on the Caribbean nation. He visited Haiti just three months after a deadly magnitude-7.0 earthquake claimed almost a half-million lives in 2010. The football player and businessman insists on being on the ground to help when he can. Garçon told USA Today that “being on the front line, making things happen and making sure it’s done the right way, it’s more important to me than just writing a check.”

For his part, Snyder also recently sent water bottles, batteries and nonperishable foods via his jet to the Bahamas, which was also in the hurricane’s destructive path.