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Carrie Underwood receives broadcasters’ Humanitarian Award

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Carrie Underwood  receives the Humanitarian Award at the CRS convention on Wednesday Feb. 19, 2014, in Nashville in Tenn.

Carrie Underwood receives the Humanitarian Award at the CRS convention on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014, in Nashville. (Photo: John Partipilo/The Tennessean)

Carrie Underwood remembers seeing her parents pull their car over to offer money to people in need. She remembers them setting examples by helping people at church. And since she’s been in a position to follow their lead and start giving back, Underwood has made helping children and animals her passion.

“They need us,” the country star told The Tennessean this morning. “They haven’t made any wrong decisions in their lives. They haven’t done anything to anyone that could be malicious. They live in the garden and they love and it’s our jobs to take care of them.”

This morning, Underwood was honored for her efforts with the Country Radio Broadcasters Artist Humanitarian Award during the opening ceremonies of the Country Radio Seminar at the Nashville Convention Center.

“Carrie is aware of the platform she’s been given and she wants to use it to save the world,” said Kenny Alphin of Big & Rich, who along with duo partner John Rich, presented Underwood with the honor. Big & Rich received the award last year.

Underwood’s charitable highlights include donating $1 million of her last tour proceeds to the American Red Cross, starting her own foundation C.A.T.S. Foundation (Checotah Animal, Town, and School Foundation) to help with general causes, needs and services in her hometown of Checotah, Okla., and extensive volunteer work including cleaning out kennels at the Checotah animal shelter.

“Those kinds of things, I feel like, make the biggest difference,” Underwood said after Wednesday morning's ceremony. “It’s easy to give money to stuff, and I feel like there’s a lot of stuff that my husband (Nashville Predators hockey player Mike Fisher) and I get to be a part of where we’re like, ‘Please don’t put it out there.’ You want to do things to help people, but not for stuff.”

Underwood’s C.A.T.S Foundation has met needs ranging from scholarship programs at Checotah schools; funds for the volunteer fire department to purchase oxygen masks for animals and tools to extract people from cars; new playgrounds; donated musical instruments and more. The singer’s family still lives in the small Oklahoma town and she still considers it her home. Helping, she said, is her responsibility.

“I am super blessed and I’ve been given so much,” she said. “If I did nothing but buy shiny things and spend it on stupid things, I just don’t think my mama would be proud of that, I don’t think I could be proud of that and I don’t think the good Lord would be too proud of that.”

She said her charity work is a group effort made possible by all of those who support her career and she just hopes others follow her lead.

“It’s the little things,” she said. “If you see someone who needs help, help them. If something needs help, help it. I feel like those are what make the best stories, not so and so wrote a check. Just so and so came and cleaned out awful nasty kennels.”


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