Carrie Underwood Receives Humanitarian Award

Carrie Underwood is known as one of the most generous stars in country music.

On Feb. 19, she was honored with the Country Radio Broadcasters Artist Humanitarian Award as part of the opening ceremonies of the 2014 Country Radio Seminar at the Nashville Convention Center.

Underwood is definitely deserving of the award -- she started a foundation, C.A.T.S (Checotah Animal, Town and School) in her hometown of Checotah, Okla., donated $1 million of the proceeds from her last tour to the American Red Cross, and she is known for extensive volunteering, including cleaning out kennels at the animal shelter in Checotah.

“Those kinds of things, I feel like, make the biggest difference,” Underwood said after Wednesday morning's ceremony. “It’s easy to give money to stuff, and I feel like there’s a lot of stuff that my husband (Nashville Predators hockey player Mike Fisher) and I get to be a part of where we’re like, ‘Please don’t put it out there.’ You want to do things to help people, but not for stuff.”

Money from the C.A.T.S Foundation has been used to set up scholarship programs at area schools, fund the volunteer fire department's purchase of oxygen masks for animals and tools, build new playgrounds and buy musical instruments.

Underwood tells the Tennessean that she was raised to be charitable. Her parents set an example for her by helping people at their church, and she remembers that they would pull their car over to offer money to those in need.

“I am super blessed and I’ve been given so much,” she says. “If I did nothing but buy shiny things and spend it on stupid things, I just don’t think my mama would be proud of that, I don’t think I could be proud of that and I don’t think the good Lord would be too proud of that.”