We literally lock up the office doors and shut off our phones. Most people in
large corporations would not be able to do that,” said Randy Goodman, president and founder of Lyric Street Records, part of the Walt Disney Company’s Music Group and the label for country music trio Rascal Flatts.
Goodman is talking about the one day each fall when Lyric Street Records pitches
in to bring a party to the patients and families at the Monroe Carell Jr.
Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
“We have the full blessing of Disney to close down the office for this event,” he said.
For the fourth year in a row, Lyric Street joined forces with the members of
Rascal Flatts (Gary LeVox, Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don Rooney) to put on a music
performance for just a few dozen patients and families in the intimate setting
of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
The party took place Oct. 8 with the performance and an opportunity for the
families to interact with the band members and choice characters you’d have to wait in a long line to be pictured with at Disney World.
“It is fun for us because it is the one big charitable thing we do together as an
organization,” said Heather Conley, director of Marketing for Lyric Street. “It’s also when we get to see our Disney roots the way other people see them. There is nothing like that
moment, when the elevator door opens up and the nurses just light up when Mickey and Minnie step out.”
And right behind Mickey and Minnie are people whose regular day jobs carry
titles like “president” or “vice-president” or “director” for one of the major music labels in the country. But on this day, their job
was to set up and tear down, work the room creating souveniers with Polaroid
cameras, whatever was needed.
This corps of VoluntEARS, as they call themselves, are part of a worldwide
Disney initiative in which they don T-shirts with the corporate signature mouse
ears on the back and do something for their communities, on Disney’s time.
In the case of the Nashville Lyric Street crew, the Disney home office sends
help and support from California to assist with the set-up at the hospital. On
the day of the event, the VoluntEARS carefully count and supply a virtual train of carts with gifts for every child in the hospital, including the many
children who are too sick to come down to the First Tennessee Theater on the
second floor for the party.
“When we go over there, we all put the T-shirts on and suddenly, I’m no longer the president of Lyric Street. We’re just a bunch of people who are there to be concerned and hopefully touch the families there,” said Goodman, who also serves on the Children‘s Hospital Board of Directors.
