By Lisa Keel
Full gallery at the end of the port.
Kid Rock is taking his band Dirty Brown Trucker on a 12 city tour of smaller venues throughout the U.S. and is showing another side of himself. The recently self-titled “empty-nester” wants to use is energy in more positive way. With a growing appreciation of where he has come from and the realization that others are not in the position to, “sit back and smoke cigars on the back porch,” as he is due to daily struggles with bills and trying to maintain the bare necessities of life, Kid Rock is giving back. The main focus of this small club tour is to raise awareness and use his high profile as a platform for on issues that touch those in need in the community. In Atlanta, he is partnering with some of the most established and well-respected people and foundations in this city.
Grady Hospitial ‘s Lisa Borders President of the Grady Health Foundation and the former Vice Mayor welcomed him on behalf of the city. Ms. Borders spoke of the tremendous need at Grady Hospital and the difficulty these days to raise money for charities; Grady Hospital Georgia’s largest public hospital and premiere trauma center in the Southeast. Also joining Kid Rock in his efforts to help those in need at the press conference was Kevin Miller, President of the Georgia Veterans Day Parade, and Camp Twin Lakes representative Adam Cohen. President Miller explained how U.S. Veterans can, at times, be assisted with services ranging from help paying for utilities and food to providing a community that understands some of the emotional and physical hardships that can arise after active duty/service is over. Mr. Cohen is helping the younger side of this in need by working with Camp Twin Lakes to give children suffering from serious illnesses such as leukemia and cancer a break from the hospital and allowing them to be kids having fun in a camp like setting. This allows these children to take their mind off of being sick for a while by engaging in outdoors sports and adventures that not only help the body heal but help heal pain in the souls and hearts of these kids who quite often show wisdom and bravery beyond their years in dealing with the realities of being very sick.
Kid Rock has been helping his home town of Detroit for years but has recently decided to not only help Detroit but other cities throughout the U.S. that may be going through difficult times as well. His objective is two fold 1) To hopefully inspire others to dig a little deeper and give to those less fortunate and 2) Show America that Detroit is emerging from a rough past to re-establish itself in a better light in the eyes of the country. Personal motivation stems from working with his mom helping out terminally illl kids with the Rainbow Connection in Michigan. Kid had an epiphany, “One day I was just looking int the mirror -YOU rich F$^&! why don’t you start to do something more! ” he realized he needed to step it up and dig a little deeper there is so much that needs to be done in this world to make it better. At first he struggled with doing a doing a press conference, preferring to stay in the background for his philanthropy. “For years I thought I’d never do a press conference.” Then he re-thought his position, “Maybe others might get inspired to help out those less fortunate – in anyway possible in any capacity “. He confessed at the press conference he truly was doing this from the heart and wanted to give back. Reciting a few lyrics from a new single “Care” with T.I , Mary J. Blige, Martina McBride and Angela Presley, “I can’t change the wars/I can’t shelter homeless, feed the poor /I cant walk on water/I can’t save your sons and daughters /I can’t change the world and make things fair, but the least that i could do is care. ” Then he once again called himself out “You liar you can do a little more than care; so that’s what we’re doing.” The “Care” tour kicked off the 12 city tour to a sold-out show at Centerstage in Atlanta bringing over $250,000 to donate to foundations along the way.
