WACO, Texas (FOX 44) — Andrew Billings is getting set to enter his eighth season in the National Football League, but before suiting up for the Chicago Bears he made sure to return home to Waco to hold his fourth annual Andrew Billings Football Camp. Giving a free opportunity for local kids to hone their skills with an NFL Veteran, but it’s just as rewarding for Billings himself.

“It’s really good to be back and doing it for the community,” Billings said. “It’s great for me because I get to have fun watching them out here running and stuff and to me that’s the job.”

Camps like these were not around when Billings was growing up but he vividly remembers a player for the New York Giants visiting Waco High when he was a high schooler, so he knows how much of an impact he can have on these young players.

“It would be important to me if I was a kid so I just try to take that and run with it,” Billings said. “If I was in their shoes how would I like it because I would love to be out here with a defensive lineman from the NFL.”

The goal of any camp like this is of course, to make sure everyone has fun but Billings is doing his best to make sure an afternoon like this one develops kids as a player and as a person.

“It’s having fun and training for football but it’s also communication,” Billings said. “You got to work together, stay in line and have all these different activities and for the older kids the one on ones are important because a lot of them have aspirations to go to college and do various things with football and out of football.”

The camp is a part of the Billings Find-a-Way Family Foundation that Andrew Billings made a point to start, and now it is enriching the community he grew up in.

“We’ve been doing bikes and books for a couple of years with various schools,” Billings said. “It’s something I always wanted to start and always thought about doing but didn’t find a way until later in my career but once I did I’m doing it and I’m sticking with it.”

Billings efforts in Waco aren’t slowing down anytime soon because he is never losing sight of where home is.

“My life is tied around Waco,” Billings said. “A lot of people in my life are from Waco so it’s somewhere where I always have to come back and I always have to give back because it’s given me so much.”

Billings will now return to Chicago to prepare for training camp and the Bears week one matchup with the Minnesota Vikings.

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