Warrick Dunn dedicates first charity home after returning to Buccaneers

Christine Bonilla, a single mother of five, cries as she holds the keys Warrick Dunn handed her this morning to her Habitat for Humanity house in Dade City. [MIKE PEASE | Times

See a photo gallery

DADE CITY -- At first, the family didn't recognize the soft-spoken young man in a brown T-shirt and blue jeans.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked as he greeted Christine Bonilla, her mother and five children outside the beige four-bedroom home that they were set to move into.

It wasn't until he removed his shades that 20-year-old Julio Bonilla started to figure things out.

"I recognized him as somebody on TV," he said. "I said, 'That's somebody famous.'"

Christine and her family knew they were receiving a home today from East Pasco Habitat for Humanity. After all, they had spent hours helping build it, a term the nonprofit organization calls "sweat equity."

What they didn't know was that the Warrick Dunn Foundation, founded in 1997 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneer-turned-Atlanta Falcon-turned-Buccaneer again, had chosen the family as one of those to receive a down payment, furnishings and a fully stocked pantry and refrigerator. The home marked the 75th that the Dunn Foundation dedicated and the first since Warrick Dunn agreed to a $6-million, two-year contract to play again in red and pewter. It also was the first Dunn home in east Pasco.

"It's great to be in Dade City. I didn't know you guys were so far away from Tampa," Warrick Dunn joked after greeting the family.

Christine Bonilla wiped away tears as she thanked Dunn. She's a huge Bucs fan, her son said, but she didn't know individual players.

"He's a player," she said. "Oh my God. I don't know what to say."

The home was move-in ready, with a flat-screen television in the great room, bedrooms that were adorned with comforter sets and matching curtains and a kitchen pantry that included spaghetti, canned beans, macaroni and cheese, Shake N' Bake, popcorn, blueberry muffin mix, chicken noodle soup, tea bags and toaster pastries. The fridge was equally full. Outside, Dunn even threw in a lawnmower.

The family toured the home with reporters in tow. The kids grinned as each found his or her room. The last door to be opened was Christine's room. She smiled through tears as she sat on a cherry sleigh bed with a cream colored spread, a breakfast tray with a vase of two matching roses.

"This is the nicest bedroom I've ever had," she said.

Dunn seemed as excited as the Bonillas as he encouraged them to sit on the beds and "go a little bit crazy" over their new house.

"You never get used to making somebody happy," he said. "It never gets old."

Lisa Buie, Times staff writer