Help Wanted

Carrie Underwood’s C.A.T.S. Foundation, created in 2009, donated a variety of musical instruments to the Checotah school district in its first year.
Photo by RICK DIAMOND/ACM

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When country music’s biggest stars top the charts in Oklahoma charitable giving, it’s music to the ears.

By BROOKE ADCOX
September/October 2011

The love of home is a common theme in country music. But it’s the philanthropic connection to where we come from that proves more poetic than any lyrics. That’s certainly the case for country musicians from the Sooner State, including Carrie Underwood, Toby Keith, and Reba McEntire. 

Underwood hit a high note when she founded the Checotah Animal, Town, and School (C.A.T.S.) Foundation in April 2009 with a donation of $117,000 of musical instruments to the Checotah school district. The gift was of classic band instruments like saxophones and French horns plus a contemporary selection of electric guitars, pianos, and amplifiers. The donations will allow for much-needed access to instruments for students who otherwise could not afford them. 

In February 2010, Underwood, an animal lover (she calls them “God’s furry creatures”) and the C.A.T.S. Foundation accepted a $50,000 donation from Pedigree for the creation of a new Checotah animal shelter. The Happy Paws Animal Shelter opened in April 2011, creating a volunteer-operated no-kill facility for the care and adoption of local animals. 

“It’s like the Taj Mahal,” says Kate Paris, lead volunteer for the facility. “It’s got a huge wash room with a washer and dryer, a big place to bathe the dogs, very nice indoor/outdoor rooms, a wonderful kitchen with a big sink, and it’s heated and cooled. It’s absolutely great.” 

Paris is no stranger to hard work—she’s at Happy Paws twice a day, every day—or to Underwood and her mother, Carol, who are both known to log volunteer hours at the facility, often taking care of the sixty-five or so dogs or purchasing supplies. 

“It is a place for the abandoned, abused, and forgotten pets from the area to get a fresh start and hopefully be able to be loved and find a forever home,” says Carrie Underwood. “It has also created a place for people to visit, donate, and volunteer. I am amazed at how many members of the community have come together and are now a part of the shelter.” 

Country musicians have a gift for creating communities, whether it’s a fan base or the infrastructure for a long-lasting charitable organization. 

Moore native and Norman resident Toby Keith has a personal passion for helping pediatric cancer patients; his former band member Scott Webb lost a child, Allison “Ally” Webb, to cancer in August 2003. Keith’s support helped launch Ally’s House in 2004, an organization that provides financial assistance to Oklahoma kids and their families during cancer treatment. 

Keith’s current focus is the Toby Keith Foundation, created in 2006 to build the OK Kids Korral, an $8 million Oklahoma City facility that will provide medical-grade housing for pediatric cancer patients and their families on the OU Health Sciences Center campus. 

“Cancer treatments in Oklahoma are becoming so progressive, and some amazing facilities are opening in Oklahoma City,” says Juliet Nees-Bright, executive director of the Toby Keith Foundation. “We have to provide resources to make the battle easier. Free lodging is just one element that is going to add to the overall success rate of treatment.” 

The facility, scheduled to break ground in September and be completed in January 2013, is a dream come true for Enid resident Stacie Caywood. Caywood’s son, Cash, battled cancer for six months—he passed away in February 2010—a time Caywood recalls as being even more difficult due to 180-mile commutes to and from Oklahoma City, where he was receiving treatment. Long separations from her daughter and husband didn’t make things any easier. 

“Toby Keith understands the fight and has determination to see this house be built, not for celebrity status or his name but for the kids,” says Caywood. “And that’s what my fight is for: It’s for the kids. I don’t have a child in the fight anymore, but I still have fight in me.” 

Charitable causes are often career-long ambitions for country stars. Chockie native Reba McEntire began offering benefit concerts to support southern Oklahoma health care in 1987. In 1992, she helped open Reba’s Ranch House, a Denison, Texas, facility that houses and cares for families with a loved one in the nearby Texoma Medical Center, which is often the nearest medical facility for Oklahomans in the Texoma area. 

Her support has remained steadfast, even as the house was acquired by the Texoma Health Foundation in 2007, a partnership that resulted in a 2010 expansion. To date, Reba’s Ranch House has served more than 26,000 guests, including those from Bryan and Marshall Counties in the facility’s Oklahoma service area. 

“Reba doesn’t lose sight of what she wants to accomplish,” says Michelle Lemming, president and CEO of the Texoma Health Foundation. “The fact that she has stayed involved over so many years is so unbelievable and unique. I don’t know many other celebrities who have done that.” 

Many popular musicians from Oklahoma can and do harness their star power to headline national and international charitable campaigns. One of the most popular is support of American troops through United Service Organizations (USO) entertainment tours—Carrie Underwood, Toby Keith, and Rascal Flatts (whose guitarist, Joe Don Rooney, is from Picher) have performed for service men and women. 

“There are so many causes and people and things out there to get involved with, it’s almost too much to handle,” says Carrie Underwood. “But we help out wherever we can. That’s what we’re here for, after all—to help each other.”

Get There: For information on the C.A.T.S. Foundation, visit thecatsfoundation.com. Happy Paws Animal Shelter, (918) 260-3530 or checotahshelter.com. The Toby Keith Foundation and OK Kids Korral, (405) 217-8629 or tobykeithfoundation.org. Reba’s Ranch House, (903) 463-7322.