Jason Aldean is opening up his wallet and funding a program that aims to help survivors still experiencing trauma after the horrifying events of Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in October 2017.
According to Forbes, the six-day workshop, titled Triumph Over Tragedy, will take place November 4th through the 10th at The Onsite Foundation’s emotional wellness retreat center in Tennessee. Thanks to funding from Aldean, the workshop will host 25 survivors, completely free of charge.
The Onsite Foundation offers a wide variety of trauma workshops as well as counseling and other programs, but this is the first for those who were at Route 91 Harvest Festival.
Of course, Jason Aldean was performing on stage when the gunfire broke out, and while Jason and his band were able to get off stage and get to safety, in just a matter of minutes, it became the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. Not to mention the hundreds of others that were wounded and those that still deal with the lingering mental traumas of enduring such a terrifying experience.
Laura Hutfless, co-founder and CEO of Nashville-based entertainment marketing agency FlyteVu, is also an Onsite board member. She shared an office building with Aldean back in 2017, and Hutfless recalls the moments when his crew walked back into the office after Route 91:
“I remember the team coming back, and their equipment being shipped back with bullet holes in them. It changes you, and the industry was being changed as a whole in Nashville with security measures being put into place and therapy dogs coming into the office.
It rocked my world. I wasn’t there, but you feel it from your whole community.”
So when she reached out to Aldean about putting together this workshop, he was quick to respond:
“I told them the need, what it would cost, and it was a quick yes… there was no hesitation.”
As of right now, it’s still to be determined if Aldean will appear at the workshop.
We’re quickly approaching the 4-year anniversary of the tragic event.
