Darryl Worley's Tennessee River Run is currently underway in the singer's hometown of Savannah, Tenn., and as usual, he's joined by several friends who'll help him entertain the crowd during the ninth annual event. Joe Diffie, Lee Brice, Danny Gokey and the Marshall Tucker Band are scheduled to perform at the event, which runs through Saturday (September 18). There is also a fish fry, a 5K run and a songwriters-in-the-round session featuring some of today's hit tunesmiths as part of the festivities.

Shortly after beginning his foundation nearly 10 years ago, Darryl began to see the fruits of his labor and his dedication to assisting those in need. "It wasn't long before people started coming up to me on the street down home and saying how much it meant to them that we helped their mother or grandson or whatever," the Tennessee native tells The Boot. "I thought, thank goodness for the people who listen to me and filter through the things I say and figure out that my vision is to give back to my hometown area and help people who feel so helpless and so hopeless and don't have any other place to turn. We've gone from lifting up the tired and the weary and helping people who might have fallen on really hard times and didn't have insurance or whatever, people that just felt like they were at the end of the line ... to building a three-million dollar, four-million dollar cancer treatment in our hometown. There's just wonderful people down around [Savannah] and they've stepped up with amazing donations."

Darryl is thrilled with the progress of the new facility. "The walls are going up on the center," he says. "They say we'll probably be treating people with cancer this time next year. I believe the advancements we're making with the medicine now, with different types of treatment, we won't just make life easier and prolong life, I think there will be a time that we'll save lives there. It's one of my greatest passions to see that thing up and running and making a difference in people's lives, especially those people down there that I have watched suffer because it's an economically-challenged area."

Proceeds from the annual event go to the Darryl Worley Foundation, which has assisted many West Tennessee charitable organizations and is also funding the new Darryl Worley Cancer Center which is currently being built as part of the Hardin Medical Center.

More From TheBoot