Trent Harmon: St. Jude Is ‘Almost an Amusement Park’

American Idol winner Trent Harmon joins the long list of country stars supporting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

During a recent visit to the organization, he says that when hearing words like "treatment" and "survival rate" he was expecting to walk into a typical hospital environment, even anticipating it to be a "morbid place." "But this ain't one of them," Harmon says of St. Jude. "This is almost an amusement park and I kind of feel like I got to visit a lot of kids while they were at the playground today and that's hard to do in a cancer treatment center, but St. Jude has done just that."

Like fellow rising country star Chase Bryant, cancer runs deep in Harmon's family, with his mother and two grandmothers all cancer survivors, while his grandfather passed away from the deadly disease. "Cancer runs in our family on both sides pretty rabidly. It's almost something so prevalent in our family that we don't talk about it a lot," Harmon admits.

"I'd really like for my family to come to St. Jude because you don't say 'cancer' as like a bad c-word. It's kind of something that they talk about in passing while they're having fun, like I said, the amusement park feel that you get when you're here."

Harmon has visited the hospital in years past, but says his most current visit allowed him to get to know the patients, like Micah, on a more personal level. Michah has a rod in his femur but wanted to talk about his love for cooking. "I tried to pay attention today," Harmon says.

On Feb. 16-17, Taste of Country will join 15 Townsquare Media stations in support of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This two-day web and radiothon aims to raise money and awareness for the world class research and treatment facility in Memphis, Tenn. Now in its fourth year, this collaborative effort has raised nearly $3.9 million. Country radio has helped raise more than $700 million during 27 years worth of Country Cares radiothons. The mission is simple: raise money, save lives.

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