Past Internet Articles About Amy Grant

Amy and Vince to raise money for wounded soldiers
By BEVERLY KEEL
April 7, 2008

Amy Grant and Vince Gill are committed to improving the lives of wounded soldiers, so they're hosting a Nashville-style songwriters event in the nation's capital on June 17.

"We are constantly going, 'What can we do now? How can we bring more awareness to the situation?' " Amy says. "We decided to do something that was very Nashville-esque, a songwriter night at the Kennedy Center. We'll invite people from Washington, tell stories and sing songs."

Challenge America 2008: Providing Hope to Wounded Warriors and Their Families will be held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Honorary chairmen include former Presidents Bush, Carter and Clinton, as well as our own Al Gore and Bill Frist.

"We talk about the 4,000 death toll," Amy says. "For every one person who has died in Afghanistan or Iraq, 16 have come back with some kind of disability. The ones who are coming back decorated as heroes are coming back emotionally disabled."

Amy was raised during the Vietnam War and had a POW bracelet.

"His last name was Gibbs," she says. "He was MIA and I would search the paper for his name. Because that was the war I grew up in the shadow of, all I knew as a young adult was how the vets were not respected, all the questions about the war."

Since 2000, she and Vince have been aggressively involved in fundraising for Challenge Aspen, which provides recreational opportunities, such as skiing and snowboarding, to those with disabilities. The couple have raised a staggering $3.1 million in eight years by auctioning off dinners at their home, hosting golf tournaments and performing shows.

In 2005, Amy attended Challenge Aspen's disabled- veterans ski week and noticed that the participants were no longer veterans from Vietnam and the Gulf War, but "red-blooded American kids." It was then that her passion kicked into high gear, leading her to write to congressmen and former presidents and give her cell phone number out so often that now she's afraid not to answer it.

"Vince and I have this feeling, if we build it, they will come," she says. "There might not be many that come this year, but if we don't treat these disabled veterans that are the ages of my nieces and nephews like family, they will fade into the woodwork, just like the Vietnam veterans did."

During a recent trip to Washington, D.C., Amy heard George Washington's description of America as the great experiment.

"I kept going, 'It still is the great experiment,' " she says. "The pendulum swings far to the left or far to the right, and this is an experiment right now. How do we embrace these disabled veterans?"

Tickets are $5,000 each. If you can't attend but would like to make a donation, mail a check to me made out to Challenge Aspen's Veterans Program, and I'll forward it to Amy. Info: www.challengeamerica2008.com.