New Orleans Saints punter Thomas Morstead tugged at the heart strings of the crowd around him in the Ochsner Sports Performance Center’s weight room when he did a “Pull Up Challenge” for former Saints employee Chris Cordaro on Monday, July 23. Cordaro was diagnosed with neuroendocrine carcinoma in the pancreas, liver, bone, spine, scalp and multiple lymph nodes in 2015.

“It’s amazing just being around Chris, how grateful he is for that time (with his family), instead of focusing on the negative, he’s just really an inspiration in that light,” Morstead said after the second day of training camp on Friday, July 27. “I offered to do something after the season was over and he kind of was like, look, I’d prefer we do something now, while I’m here, so you can’t say no to that.”

Morstead gave himself the task of completing as many pull ups as possible in an hour in hopes of raising $60,000, through his What You Give Will Grow Foundation, for Cordaro and his family. The livestream of the event reached thousands and social media accounts from the Saints, ESPN, Bleacher Report, and many more quickly picked up on the tremendous efforts of Morstead, who eventually completed 418 pull ups.

After setting a goal of $60,000 on Monday, July 23, the amount ultimately grew to $100,150 as of Sunday, July 29. One hundred percent of the donations will go to support the college fund of the Cordaro kids, 7-year-old Ava and 4-year-old Landon. More than 700 people donated,