The annual Pickin’ on a Soldier’s Heart music festival is returning to KenLake State Resort Park in Aurora this weekend to raise funds for a nonprofit that helps veterans dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Military Sexual Trauma, and other combat or service-related trauma.
The festival benefitting A Soldier’s Heart, Bluegrass & Muddy Waters began in 2015 as a one-day event. Since then, it has transformed into a three-day festival featuring live music and family activities, along with food and craft vendors and a beer garden.
Festival co-founder Jeremy Wallace said he and his wife, Kendra, came up with the idea as a way of supporting veterans struggling with PTSD. Wallace himself is a veteran who struggles with post-war trauma.
“I served in the Kentucky National Guard from the year 2000 to 2013 [and] served many different humanitarian missions here in the United States, including natural disasters. We were deployed to Hurricane Katrina. While we were at Hurricane Katrina, our unit, Charlie Company, second 123rd Armored out of Benton, Kentucky, got orders to go to Iraq,” said Wallace. “Between Hurricane Katrina and Iraq, we were gone for about 23 months. We had a pretty tough mission over there. We were convoy escort security teams. We ran six nights a week, up and down the Main Supply Route Tampa, through Iraq from Tikrit, Iraq down to Baghdad.”
He said the unit lost a fellow servicemember during combat operations. Within six months after returning home from their tour, another servicemember died by suicide.
Wallace said that he and a lot of his contemporaries struggled with PTSD and was inspired by his experiences at a veterans retreat to put something together to help those processing trauma. Originally a one-day event at the Dam Brewhaus in Benton, Pickin on a Soldier’s Heart has evolved into a three-day festival at Ken Lake Resort Park.
“We started out doing a couple of ruck marches as our fundraiser the first couple years. That second march we did, we had a music event at the end of that. The next year, we did a one day music festival. Started out just a one-day music festival out at the Dam Brewhaus, but this is our eighth year and it has grown.”
In addition to live music, the festival also features vendors and activities geared toward families and fellowship.
“We've got 22 to 25 craft vendors, 11 food trucks. We're gonna have bouncy houses out there for the kids. We'll have a beer garden, all kinds of stuff. It's a great time for the whole family, kids 12 and under get in free,” Wallace said.
This year’s music lineup includes The Kentucky Headhunters, Laid Back Country Picker, Luna and the Mountain Jets, Tony Logue and the 184, Hollerhead, Steven Green, Sunlight Gently Jams, Just South of Antarctica, Devin Metzger & the Cane Holler Saints, and other local and regional acts.
Festival co-founder Kendra Wallace said the lineup is scheduled so that people can make the most out of all the performance opportunities the event has to offer.
“We do have a lot of music. Over the years, we've expanded to two stages, and we have the music staggered on starting times. That way you can kind of plan accordingly to see all the bands you want to see. Kind of catch two shows in an hour,” she said.
Jeremy Wallace said he is grateful for the outpouring of support from the community they have received for the festival and its mission of helping veterans heal from service-related traumas.
“It's the community that helps provide what we do for our veterans through our retreats, and that's what we do at this music festival. We host retreats on Kentucky Lake for veterans that struggle with post traumatic stress disorder and military sexual trauma. We invite all veterans to come out, but we definitely prioritize those with post traumatic stress and MST,” Wallace said. “This music festival provides the funding for these retreats. It doesn't cost them anything. It's life-changing for the veterans. In their testimonies, they say it's life-changing. We've had veterans tell us, you know, ‘this saved my life, these retreats saved my life.’”
Pickin’ on a Soldier’s Heart is a three day festival that runs Friday, September 12 until Sunday, September 14th. More information, including artists and the performance schedule, can be found on the nonprofit’s website.
