Taylor Swift Donates $1 Million for Tennessee Tornado Relief: 'Nashville Is My Home'

Karen Mizoguchi
·2 min read

Taylor Swift has donated $1 million to the Middle Tennessee Emergency Response Fund, her rep confirms to PEOPLE.

After deadly tornados tore through central Tennessee early Tuesday morning, the singer made a contribution to tornado relief to aid her adopted home state.

“Nashville is my home and the fact that so many people have lost their homes and so much more in Middle Tennessee is devastating to me,” Swift, 30, shared on her Instagram Story Thursday.

The Grammy-winning artist spent her early years in Pennsylvania before moving to Nashville with her family at age 14 to pursue music.

At least 24 people in Tennessee are dead and many remain missing, according to The Washington Post. In Nashville alone, at least 48 buildings collapsed, the Nashville Fire Department said, with schools, businesses and one popular concert venue all reduced to rubble.

This is not the first time Swift has donated following a natural disaster in Nashville. Back in 2010, the star helped raise millions for flood relief, donating $500,000 during an NBC telethon and later creating the Taylor Swift Charitable Fund.

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Taylor Swift/Instagram

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Many musicians, including several in the country music world, expressed their heartfelt condolences with many marking themselves safe from danger. Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, Maren Morris, Dierks Bentley and Kacey Musgraves were among those to speak out on social media.

Musgraves announced a “major closet sale” to benefit her home state with money raised from the sale being donated to tornado relief efforts.

The first tornado was reported Tuesday around 12:38 a.m. CST in the city of Mt. Juliet in Wilson County, moving east about 45 mph, the National Weather Service said. Two more touched down in Putnam County, 80 miles east of Nashville.

Of the 24 fatalities, 18 were Putnam County residents and five children under the age of 13 died, Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter told reporters on Wednesday.

“We have had loss of life all across this state,” said Gov. Bill Lee, who declared a state of emergency. “There are folks missing. In the worst of circumstances the best of people comes out, and that’s what we’re seeing here in Tennessee. It is as we would expect.”