Katie Armiger Launches Campaign to Honor First Responders in Moore, Oklahoma, Boston + Beyond [Watch]
Katie Armiger's new single 'Safe' is more than a song -- it's a movement. The singer is using the ballad from 'Fall Into Me' as the centerpiece of a campaign to honor first responders across the country.
She's visited with the fire departments called into action after the Moore, Okla. tornado, Boston Marathon bombings and superstorm Sandy. Project Feel Safe is personal, Armiger tells Taste of Country.
The clip above, premiering exclusively on ToC, shows Armiger playing for firemen and women and their families in Moore. Armiger visited in October 2013, just four months after EF-5 twister cut a 17-mile path through town.
The singer was amazed at how quickly the town pulled together.
"There are definitely things that are still visible when you drive through," she explains, "but one of the most amazing things is how that community put themselves back together. When you drive through, there are so many things that you would expect -- 'Wow, this is devastating!' But that community just got together and they’ve worked so hard on rebuilding it."
In December, Armiger visited with a team of volunteer firefighters in Union Beach, N.J. At each stop, she plays for the fire department and learns their stories. "Sandy happened months and months ago but a lot of the guys at the station had just been placed in their homes again within this past month," Armiger says.
"One of them, actually the week I came there, just got in his house that week. You sit there and you go, 'He’s going to work every day for nine-plus months, and he was living with his wife, his children in a trailer. And still working to help other people,'" she shares. "That’s amazing. That’s a hero."
The ability of first responders to put aside their fears, worries for their families and personal possessions to help others left a lasting impression on Armiger. Two of her aunts are first responders, and one played an important role in the development of the Project Feel Safe campaign and the stirring music video for 'Safe.'
"It’s taken the effort of everybody on the label, everybody on the team, just being 100 percent all in," Armiger says. "I just wanted to make sure everything we were trying to do came across with this really great level, because we do just have the highest respect and I wanted to make sure it came off that way."
The video for 'Safe' features a bone-chilling, realistic fire scene. Armiger says it looks real because it was. The Long Beach Fire Department donated their crew, training space and facilities to her team for a day.
"It wouldn’t have been possible without them," she adds. "That fire is completely, 100 percent real."
Visit the Project Feel Safe website to learn how you can honor first responders in your area, and to see which fire departments Armiger will be visiting next. She said she expects to work these visits in between tour stops throughout 2014. Additionally, she is hoping to return to communities like Moore and Union Beach to play shows for the entire town.