Kenny Chesney tour helps with bone marrow matches

Kenny Chesney’s 2015 Big Revival tour wasn’t just the most attended country music tour this year with 1,335,0022 fans, it was also a tour that made a difference. Participating in the Love Hope Strength Foundation’s Get On The List Campaign, concertgoers at the East Tennessean’s stadium shows were able to participate in a mobile drive to register potential bone marrow donors with a simple cheek swab test that, in co-operation with Delete Blood Cancer, gets entered in the national donor bank for potential matches.

While finding random matches is like finding a needle in a haystack, the No Shoes Nation provided 25 potential matches to people fighting life-threatening bone and blood cancers. Keeping in mind  Love Hope Strength’s slogan, “Saving Lives, One Concert at a Time,” the No Shoes Nation joined fans attending Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits Festival, Bumbershoot, the Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well concerts and artists ranging from Robert Plant, Mumford & Sons, Michael Franti and Norah Jones to Enrique Iglesias, Linkin Park, James Taylor, Shovels & Rope and Jack White.

Kenny said, “When Kate McMahon with our tour promoter explained it to me. It seemed not only so simple, but the kind of thing the No Shoes Nation is all about. Give back to others, help where you can, live to the fullest and make a difference. I can’t believe they’ve found 25 matches, but I couldn’t be prouder for the fans who come out and live these songs with us . . . Maybe we should call them the No Shoes, All Heart Nation.”