Members of the Gwinn High School football team stack firewood to help local residents. The focus of the effort is to give back to the supportive community. (Photo courtesy of Anna Juidici)

MARQUETTE — Football and firewood don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

The Gwinn High School Modeltowners football team, which is having a successful campaign at 5-3, is giving back to the community by stacking firewood for people who need this arduous task performed.

They’ve already accomplished this twice this season.

“We just love doing things for the community like that because they show our support, especially when you’re having a winning season and everything like that,” coach Dion Brown said.

When someone asks for help with their firewood, the team brings a trailer to wherever the wood is cut, and then transport it back to the homeowners’ residence where they stack the wood.

So far, it’s usually family members who have requested the help, he said, or someone who’s come by and asked for help from the football players.

Working on weekends also doesn’t seem to matter too much.

“If Sunday, if you need it, then we’ll come out and do it,” Brown said.

Reid Hill, a sophomore who plays offensive tackle and is part of the defensive line, has been part of the program, which believes is a nice thing to do for the community.

“It helps people out and it makes them not have to do much,” Hill said.

The team’s efforts have not gone unnoticed.

“Dion Brown shows these guys what it means and takes to be a team on and off the field,” said Hill’s mother, Anna Juidici, via text.

Her parents, Louie and Sherry Juidici, who also are Hill’s grandparents, have been beneficiaries of the squad’s wood-stacking efforts.

“They are such role models for what a team actually is,” she said.

Brown said the players will continue to help the community whenever they get the opportunity.

“That goes for anything else,” Brown said. “Always willing to help out.”

The community outreach efforts also can instill lessons in the players, including the Golden Rule.

“It teaches them life goals as well — do unto others as is done to you,” Brown said. “Help out. Just appreciate things because these are the same people that come and watch you play football, basketball or track and field and everything else.

“It’s always good to give back.”