A new grassroots concert series is supporting local charities
On the evening of June 15, country singer-songwriter Mac McAnally took the stage at the Tennessee Amphitheater. His performance attracted hundreds of attendees to World’s Fair Park and raised thousands of dollars for local charities in the first of an ongoing benefit concert series organized by Concerts for Our Own.
Concerts for Our Own is the brainchild of Aaron Snukals, who previously managed fundraising for the Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee. As he explained to the crowd at the concert, it is important to him to support smaller local charities. “The help I could give some of these big charities would be a drop in the bucket,” he says. The charities his work supports – the Love Kitchen, Special Spaces, and Breast Connect – he says are essential to Knoxville being able to thrive, and the money he can raise for them might be the difference between them folding and being able to continue their work.
Two more concerts are planned for 2023. Jay White’s Sweet Caroline Tour will be coming to the Amphitheater on August 10, and Here Come the Mummies will be making their appearance on October 12. Snukals has high hopes for the project, but this isn’t his first rodeo, and if the concerts aren’t bringing in the money they need to be, he knows he might have to cut his losses. Even so, he’s promised all the charities a minimum of $5,000, paid out of his own pocket, if ticket sales don’t make up the difference.
“I just want to help these people,” says Snukals. “I honestly believe down deep inside that, if we get to a real serious discussion, this is why we’re put on this earth: to help each other. So let’s try.”
You can get tickets for upcoming concerts here.