Global supply chain major Luke Bevilacqua named a nominee for AFCA Good Works Team
This story originally appeared on the Wayne State Athletics website.
Redshirt junior Luke Bevilacqua (Lake Orion, Mich.) has been named as one of 137 national nominees for the 2019 Allstate AFCA Good Works Team®.
Bevilacqua is only one of four GLIAC players on this year's ballot along with Ashland's Clay Shreve, Ferris State's Travis Russell and Michigan Tech's Jacob Wenzlick. There are two 11-man teams, a Division I-A team and a combined team from NCAA Football Championship Subdivision, Divisions II, II and the NAIA, that honor players for their dedication and commitment to community service.
In 2016, Trent Brodbeck became just the second Warrior to be selected to the final team, joining Alan Guy in 2007. Brodbeck and the rest of the 2016 Allstate AFCA Good Works Team® were invited to New Orleans to participate in a community project before the 2017 Allstate® Sugar Bowl®, where the team was recognized at halftime.
Bevilacqua began doing community service as part of his church being involved in Gifts for all God's Children, which entailed serving dinners, giving gifts to kids and plays at other churches that were less fortunate. He also participated in Vacation Bible School and Singing with the Scouts at Senior Homes. While in high school, Bevilacqua went on mission trips including one to Alderson, W. Va. where he and his classmates re-shingled a roof because there were actual spots on the roof where daylight was coming in.
Since joining the Warrior football program in the fall of 2016, Bevilacqua found an organization called "The Dream Center of Pontiac". Pontiac, once a thriving community with the automotive industry, is now poverty stricken. One of the outreach programs the Dream Center offers is a food pantry. Bevilacqua shares in the responsibility of providing bread each week to the pantry by picking up and delivering bread from a local bread company. The Pantry, when he first started had approximately 30 families, but today is serving upwards of 100 families. The pantry provides these families an opportunity to shop for themselves each week on Friday. Bevilacqua joined this team as a freshman at Wayne State and has volunteered there every Friday since.
In addition to being a youth soccer referee, through the Lake Orion Parks and Recreation Department, Bevilacqua also instructs the fundamentals of kicking every Sunday morning throughout the winter months.
In 2018, Bevilacqua participated in the "Be the Match" Bone Marrow Drive with the WSU Football program's "Get in the Game" drive. In January of this year, Bevilacqua received a call that he was a representative from Be the Match. On May 1, 2019, he donated two and half liters of bone marrow.
