Singer Taylor Swift made a major donation to help Nashville after a devastating tornado swept through the city and Middle Tennessee early Tuesday morning. The “You Need to Calm Down” singer donated $1 million to the Middle Tennessee Emergency Response Fund, her spokesperson Tree Paine told USA Today. At least 24 people were killed by the tornado.
“Nashville is my home,” Swift wrote in an Instagram Story post. “And the fact that so many people have lost their homes and so much more in Middle Tennessee is devastating to me.”
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Swift also included a link to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, which set up the Emergency Response Fund.
“We know when disasters strike, there are no quick fixes,” Ellen Lehman, president of The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, said in a statement. “We need to support the affected communities and the nonprofits on the ground helping victims and addressing their needs.”
According to the foundation, the fund’s grants will go to nonprofits helping out victims of the storm with services for both immediate and long term needs. “Our work helps free nonprofits up to concentrate on delivering vital services while we ‘connect generosity with need’ and our community sets out to rebuild lives,” the foundation’s statement read.
Swift, who was born in Pennsylvania, has made several charitable contributions to Nashville since becoming a star. After Music City was hit with flooding in 2010, she donated $500,000 and launched the Taylor Swift Charitable Fund. She also made headlines in 2012 when she donated $4 million to the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum to help out their educational programs. Last year, she donated $113,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project after releasing “You Need to Calm Down.”
Swift is not the only music star helping out Nashville. Sheryl Crow will donate half the proceeds from her weekend clothing drive to relief efforts and the other half to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.
“In light of the tornadoes that hit Nashville, we are now splitting the funds from this weekend’s sale to support the cleanup around Nashville,” Crow said in a video she shared on Twitter.
Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row bar and restaurant in Lower Broadway will host a charity concert on Monday, and tickets have already sold out, reports Rolling Stone. The event will be hosted by Mitchell Tenpenny, with Devin Dawson, Jessie James Decker and others performing. Proceeds will go to charities affiliated with Hands on Nashville.
On Tuesday night, Kacey Musgraves had a closet sale, and all proceeds went to relief efforts.
The tornado was the second deadliest tornado to hit Tennessee, behind a 1952 tornado that killed 38, reports NBC News. It was the worst tornado event in the U.S. since 23 people were killed in Lee County, Alabama on March 3, 2019.
Photo credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
