When the New England Patriots won their second straight Super Bowl in 2005, the people of Donaldsonville, La., wanted to have a parade to honor their favorite son, Jarvis Green.

It wasn’t necessary, Green said. The town had given him a parade the year before, after he won his first championship with the Pats.

But his neighbors insisted, and Green said yes.

Green says yes to a lot of things when it comes to his hometown, a small town about 65 miles west of New Orleans: yes to speaking with schoolchildren, yes to rewarding local honor-roll students for their efforts, yes to buying uniforms for the youth football and AAU basketball teams.

He has also said yes to the young son of a fallen teammate.

The mayor of Donaldsonville, Leroy Sullivan, knows that that’s just Green’s way. Sullivan has known Green’s family for years — one of Green’s uncles is pastor at the church Sullivan attends — and the mayor and the defensive lineman have forged a friendship over time.

“He was always a very humble person,” says Sullivan. “A lot of kids, when they see how good they are in athletics, sometimes they forget about everything else; they forget about their team. He didn’t.”

Green has remained a big part of Donaldsonville even as he toils in New England.

“The majority of our town is African-American, and they need that positive role model to know that they can reach the same plateau,” Sullivan says. “He’s not just a football player — he went to school and made sure that he positioned himself for life after football. I make sure I tell the kids that too: he’s positioned himself well for life after football.”

Green already owns a liquor store not far from LSU’s Tiger Stadium, site of many outstanding games for himself, but later this year, he’ll open a restaurant/sports bar in the center of his hometown.

It will be called The Capitol, to honor the one brief year (1830-1831) that Donaldsonville spent as Louisiana’s state capital. Thanks to its brush with glory, many of the buildings in town are historical landmarks; the building where Green’s restaurant is housed used to be the bus depot.

The big brick building had to be gutted, but when it is finished, it will offer pub-type food, a large covered deck, and a new place for his friends and family to watch his games — in the past, municipal buildings have been opened for residents to cheer on Green together.

Green has taken pains to hire local contractors to do the work, Sullivan said, and though it has taken a bit longer to be completed than first thought, it looks like Capitol will have a November opening.

Predictably, the establishment doesn’t have just Green’s name attached to it. As with so many other things in his life that he does all-out, the father of three has learned every aspect of the restaurant business.

He interned at Providence Prime and Providence Oyster Bar, both on Federal Hill, for more than a year, learning everything from the front of the house to the kitchen, the bus boys to the chefs.

As he eagerly awaits the opening, Green has been off to a fantastic start with the Patriots. A highly valued reserve who’d probably be on the first unit for any other team in the NFL, he’s starting owing to Richard Seymour’s knee injury and already has eight tackles and two sacks.

Not everything this year has been a positive for Green, however.

On May 28, Green found out that he had lost the teammate he had come to see as a younger brother when Marquise Hill drowned in Lake Pontchartrain after a Jet Ski accident.

Green and Hill had been teammates at LSU, and became teammates again when the Patriots drafted Hill in 2004. Though Hill struggled to earn a spot on a deep defensive line, his fun-loving nature drew Green to him.

When he died, Hill left behind a young son, Ma’Shy, and a fiancÉe, Inell Benn. Sullivan disclosed that Green has basically adopted Ma’Shy since Hill’s passing.

When Sullivan saw Green at the town’s Juneteenth celebration — the holiday commemorating emancipation — he had the toddler with him.

“He said he’s going to make sure (Ma’Shy) had everything that he needed,” Sullivan said. “I thought that was so overwhelming, that he had a bond with this other athlete, the young boy lost his father and Jarvis said, ‘I’m going to step up and be a father figure for him.’ ”

“That’s the way Jarvis is.”

smanza@projo.com