Here’s what I love to see: JP Losman, the Bills’ young starting quarterback (entering his fourth year with the team), has taken his new hometown into his heart in a big way:
When Losman started to think about what he could do for the City of Buffalo, it’s no surprise his focus went to the grass-roots level. Lending his name to a project, donating a bunch of money and then handing it all off to subordinates is so not his style. If Losman is going to get involved, he’s going to roll up his sleeves and throw his heart into it.
So this summer, Losman created a project called Buffalo Lives, a nonprofit organization with a goal of beautifying Buffalo one block at a time.
His new project has a website, BuffaloLives.org. Of this project, Losman says:
“When you pick a name, you ask yourself, what are we trying to get accomplished?” he said. “We’re planting things that are going to be alive and stay alive. It’s not a dying city. It’s a city moving forward.
“It’s a city that has had the greatest number of comebacks in the last couple of years, according to some studies of the number of people moving back to their communities,” Losman said. “It was just rated in Forbes magazine as one of the coolest cities in America for nightlife, culture, art, music. It is being recognized, but the actual people of Buffalo need to recognize it.”
The 26-year-old Losman is a native of Venice, Calif., and spent his college years at Tulane University in New Orleans. After being drafted by the Bills in 2004, he moved into a downtown condominium. Last year, he bought a house on Oakland Place, near Women and Children’s Hospital.
“The old-style homes in the city — they were built to last,” Losman said. “Whereas you go to California, and they box you in like rice. The homes are twice as expensive as here in Buffalo and twice as small and twice as close together. There’s no backyard.
“On any given night, you can hear good music,” Losman said of Buffalo. “On any given night, you can go to many great restaurants. People do take pride in the area, but I think people need to realize they can take more of a leadership role in their community than they realize.”
This is just terrific. Bravo, JP.
Now, win the Super Bowl one of these years, and you’ll be worshipped like nobody since…Jim Kelly!