Seahawks’ Jermaine Kearse getting hands dirty in offseason

Seahawks wide receiver Jermaine Kearse isn’t just kicking back during his time off from the football field. The Tacoma native just got back from Nicaragua where he helped build a new school.

Kearse told 710 ESPN Seattle’s The Barbershop that he recently completed a two-week mission trip with the GIVE group, an organization Kearse explained allows college students to volunteer for school credit. He said one of the projects they worked on was a school made out of bottles.

“They already had a project going building a school out of 2-liter bottles and we went out there and we helped out finishing the sport court,” Kearse said. “We got our hands dirty a little bit.”

After back-to-back seasons playing all the way through January, Kearse said he was OK giving himself some time off.

“Teams that didn’t make the playoffs, they had the whole month of January off,” Kearse said. “I took the whole month of February off. I felt like I deserved that time off to enjoy myself.”

But he was adamant that he wasn’t letting himself get soft.

“It’s not like I went to Nicaragua and I was just vacationing. I was really putting in work out there, building that sports court, making concrete with shovels, that ain’t no easy task.”

Now that March is here, though, Kearse said it’s time to get back to work.

“I’m about to get back at it. It’s the beginning of March, this is the time I get back at it. So I’ll be starting working out this week,” Kearse said.

His time off did give him a fresh perspective, he said.

“You go down there and you see the conditions down there and how people live and you feel more appreciative,” he said.

He’s thankful for the opportunity the GIVE organization provided him and said interested college students should check it out.

You can see photos and video from his trip at his Instagram page.