Let’s face it, celebrities don’t always use their fame for good. Many, many do — actors and musicians often face hard times before their big breaks, and so they can appreciate intimately what living with hardships is like. It’s only natural to want to help out.
Darius Rucker is no different. At one point when he was a kid, he lived in a three-bedroom house with his mom, her sisters, his grandmother, and 13 other kids. He knows about hard times. And he’s trying to help kids today get through hard times of their own.
There’s more than one good reason to be a Darius Rucker fan.
Of course, ’90s kids will remember Darius Rucker as the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish, whose songs you couldn’t possibly escape for at least three years in there — and were probably stuck in your head for even longer.
Years after Hootie’s peak, Darius re-invented himself as a country singer.
And his career in country has shown that Hootie’s success was no fluke. He even took home a Grammy in 2014 for Best Solo Country Performance, and he’s had eight No. 1 hits on country radio.
Along the way, Darius also found a cause close to his heart.
In 2009, he and Dierks Bentley visited St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis, and he was immediately moved to try to help. “I was struck on that first visit by how St. Jude not only cares for their patients, but also their patients’ families,” he said . “They believe that a financial burden is the last thing a family should face when their focus needs to be on helping a kid get better, and St. Jude makes sure that their patients never pay a dime.”
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So, to help St. Jude out, he started an annual tradition, hosting a fundraiser for the hospital.
It has since become a yearly highlight for him, usually involving a star-studded concert and a golf tournament. It’s been known to sell out even before all the guest artists are announced.
Well, 2019 marked a full decade of fundraising for Darius, and so the Darius & Friends concert was something special.
At Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, Darius welcomed some incredible guests on stage, including Luke Bryan, Sheryl Crow, Jimmie Allen, Kane Brown, Travis Denning, and Brett Young, and in a surprise appearance, Charles Kelley of Lady Antebellum.
With that kind of backing, how could this fundraiser possibly miss?
And it didn’t, with 2,400 fans packing the auditorium. The 10th annual fundraiser was actually the biggest year for the event so far, bringing in a whopping $425,000. That brings the full decade total to over $2 million in money raised for St. Jude. “It’s an honor for us to be able to help them continue such an important mission,” he said.
For Darius, helping out people in need is just how he was raised.
“My mom raised me that way,” he said . “We didn’t have much, we were poor growing up. She was a nurse, and trying to raise these kids. But she always instilled in us that if we could help somebody, we should.” That lesson has certainly stuck with Darius, as all of his charitable efforts earned him the Harry Chapin Memorial Humanitarian Award.
