Dustin Poirier's Good Fight Foundation Donating 1K Meals to Hospital Workers
April 12, 2020
Lightweight fighter Dustin Poirier is pitching in to help healthcare workers in the fight against COVID-19.
The UFC star announced on social media his charity, The Good Fight Foundation, will donate 1,000 meals to hospital staff in Lafayette, Louisiana, beginning Sunday and will continue throughout next week.
The 31-year-old was born and raised in Lafayette—55 miles west of Baton Rouge—and has partnered with Deanos Pizza to provide the meals.
"There's three major hospitals here in Lafayette," Poirier told MMA Junkie's Mike Bohn. "We want to feed every employee, doctors, nurses, at every hospital."
The 5'9", 155-pound fighter is 17-5 in his UFC career, but that's now on pause as the coronavirus pandemic has caused the sports world to shut down. On Friday, UFC President Dana White announced he was postponing all future fights after the company's broadcast partner, ESPN, strongly encouraged White to do so.
Poirier last fought against Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 242 in Abu Dhabi last September. The match ended in a submission in the third round after Nurmagomedov caught him with a chokehold. Poirier was slated to take on Dan Hooker on May 16.
Charitable work is nothing new for Poirier. He's used The Good Fight Foundation to help build fresh water wells for communities in Uganda, built a playground for children with special needs and helped the family of a Lafayette police officer who was shot and killed while on duty.
According to the charity's website, the organization started after Poirier was getting ready to move and stumbled upon boxes of memorabilia from the his career. Instead of placing it in storage or trashing it, Poirier and his wife, Jolie, began auctioning off items to raise money to donate to various causes in his hometown.
Louisiana has reported 20,014 positive cases of the coronavirus as of Saturday, per a CNN tally, with 806 residents dead. The state has the third-highest rate of infection behind New York and New Jersey with 431 cases per 100,000 residents.