FOXBORO — Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski doesn’t need a football field to be a superstar.

Gronk is a cult hero, a pigskin-spiking, touchdown-scoring, dance-the-day-and-night-away football maniac and a rock star whose performance matches his personality for 16-plus Sundays a year.

But Gronk is also a life-changer in hospital rooms, on playgrounds and countless other places in the community. He has been a dream for the Patriots community affairs department, showing up in the 2014 offseason after finally recovering from knee surgery and asking how he could help with upcoming events.

In the last week alone, Gronkowski made a 16-year-old’s wish come true from the Make-A-Wish Foundation by playing football with him at Gillette Stadium, and Gronk sent a personalized video to Medway High School as they were coping over the death of 17-year-old senior Maddie Lamson.

As Gronk sees it, what’s the point of being a public figure if he can’t help the public?

“It’s cool to give back to the community where everyone supports you, give back to kids who are less fortunate or don’t have those opportunities, to give back to them, to give them sports equipment, to give them the chance to be the best they can possibly be to succeed when they’re growing up,” Gronkowski said. “I go in there with the mindset of hoping they get something out of it, for sure.

“When you go in to a school visit or building a playground, you see everyone interacting, everyone smiling, everyone feeding off it with high energy. That’s when you feel good about it. When everyone is paying attention, listening, asking questions, getting along, and it’s just going good.”

Gronkowski, who is on pace for the second-best statistical season of his career, runs the Gronk Nation, which raises money and donates equipment for youth sports. And he has also actively supported his teammates’ endeavors, whether it’s Jerod Mayo’s annual bowling night, or Danny Amendola’s celebrity waiter event. The Patriots charted at least nine team-sponsored public community events that Gronkowski formally attended in the past year, but he also has a penchant for showing up completely unannounced or on a last-minute whim, as he did at a “Football For Youth” event at Hanscom Air Force Base.

Gronkowski’s favorite event has been One Mission’s annual Kids Cancer Buzz-Off at Gillette Stadium, where he shaves his head each June to raise money to fight cancer. Gronk’s attendance has caused the drive to explode in popularity, as they’ve raised more than $3 million in five years. He has been humbled to see so many young kids shave their heads at the beginning of the summer.

“It’s definitely brave for an eighth-grader, girl or boy, to come in and buzz their head,” Gronkowski said. “It’s cool to be the guy they look up to, for them to see me do it, so they think it’s cool to do it, too, which it is. It’s definitely helping out a good cause, helping out that friend who is close to them who might have cancer.”

For Gronk, no feeling has rivaled the elation of meeting a child in the hospital and then seeing them out at a restaurant a few years later, which he said has happened a few times.

“What’s cool is I’ve seen many kids before down the line,” Gronkowski said. “I actually visited people in Children’s Hospital, and three years later, I’m out in a restaurant and they come up to me and say, ‘Yo Rob, do you remember visiting me in the Children’s Hospital?’ And they remember it to an exact T, and I totally remember it, too. That’s definitely a great time when you see them outside the hospital and they thank you again. That’s a cool experience.”

It’s nice to see one of the league’s most popular stars stick to his roots, as Gronkowski hasn’t teetered from his drive to support the community since he was drafted in 2010. If anything, he has become more involved, which gets overlooked too often when the likes of Greg Hardy and Ray Rice dominate the national spotlight.

And then there’s Gronk, the biggest kid of them all who certainly acts like it when he hosts his summer football camp, or gets dressed up like a Christmas tree at the team’s annual holiday party for 250 children, or passes out turkey baskets to families at Goodwill or helps build a school playground with the Patriots.

He also isn’t afraid to unleash a Gronk spike when handing out footballs to kids when visiting patients at Boston-area hospitals, where some even ask him to score them a touchdown. (With 62 touchdowns in 73 games, he probably delivered on those requests, too.)

“A lot of times, you always see a kid saying, ‘Do a Gronk spike for me.’ Or they do it right there in the hospital with the football you give them right there,” Gronk said. “That’s definitely cool when they bring that up.”

Gronkowski has brought a certain level of joy to Pats fans for six years, but he means more to some than anyone realizes. His touchdown catch — and, obviously, the spike — Saturday on the practice field was worth a whole lot more than six points to the handful in attendance.

That’s how Gronk spends more of his time out of the spotlight than anyone has realized.

“It definitely means something that their Make-A-Wish is to come meet you,” Gronk said. “You see them when they come over with their families, not just the kids but their families, and you see the big smiles on their faces, taking pictures the whole time, enjoying that moment.

“They could talk about it the whole next day or in the days and months and years to come. You can definitely see it’s impactful on their lives, and it makes you feel good about it.”