April 25th, 2025, Raven Drum Foundation will bring their 2nd annual Benefit Concert & Legacy Award Commemoration honoring humanitarian, artist, Co-Founder of KISS and Original Cat-Man, Peter Criss. The event will take place at The Cutting Room in New York City. The main focus though, is to raise money for First Responders.
I recently spoke with Raven Drum Foundation founders, Lauren Monroe, and Rick Allen. I have gotten to know Lauren and Rick fairly well over the years from being involved in Raven Drum Foundation charity events. It made for a very relaxed conversation where we got more in depth discussing the work Raven Drum is involved with than we have in the past.
The focus on First Responders has a lot to do with the LA Fires. Lauren mentioned, a lot of the fundraising in the aftermath was aimed, rightfully so, towards people who had lost their homes and to the Red Cross. But “There was not a lot of attention on the first responders.” Since Raven Drum was already involved with many organizations and involved with helping first responders, they “Jumped in.” Lauren explained that Raven Drum brings “Somatic awareness, mind body connection work to people going through trauma with the drums. So, it’s a very unique model of bringing people into very deep states of healing and education so that they can learn about their nervous system and learn about their body and how their mind is very closely connected to that, and their emotions reflect a lot of that.”
Raven Drum has begun working with Resiliency First. They are an organization of first responders training other first responders in very similar techniques to the ones Raven Drum uses. They have done multiple conferences and been able to work with over two hundred first responders. Raven Drum has also raised over $46,000.00 through auctions, including for autographed guitars from Def Leppard. The money lets these men and women go through the three-to-five-day retreat for free. The retreat even involves the attendee’s families at the conclusion.
Then the discussion turned to the ripple effect of trauma felt by first responders and how the healing is a family healing. Rick shared his own story about how the accident where he lost his arm, that an off-duty police officer and an off-duty nurse saved his life. “Without them, I might not have made it. Any one of the people that we’re working with could have been the two people that saved my life.” Part of Raven Drum’s goal is to start an initiative to get this program into the fire and police academies “Before these young men and women go out and have 35 years, a career without knowing this very vital information.”
Lauren quoted some disturbing statistics including that first responders are 70% more likely to get divorced, they are at a greater risk of contracting cancer and cardiac disease, higher risk of suicide and their life span is 15 to 20 years shorter than a civilian. She also spoke about how too often our first responders are taken for granted and that we should remember them and “Make sure that they are healthy and well and strong and treat them with respect and dignity. Because we rely on them so much.”
This event is being held in New York and will help local first responders. Lauren brought up that many of the 9-11 first responders still have not received the care they need for the trauma they experienced. Lauren mentioned another partner organization, Friends of Firefighters. They give free counseling sessions to help them get perspective on their trauma and begin healing.
Our conversation did go deeper into detail about the techniques and how they are used. Lauren and Rick even joked about how people may think of some of this in a questioning way before experiencing it. In discussing trauma and specifically PTSD, I had a personal reaction that I shared. It directly related to the work that Raven Drum does. This was a very important part of what we spoke about. Lauren really went into discussing personal awareness and how that affects all of us.
The funds raised at The Cutting Room on April 25th, 2025, will go to funding programs so that first responders can learn these techniques. Part of the goal is also a cultural shift on how we look at the men and women who we rely on to help us when we call.
To donate, you can purchase tickets and attend the event. If that isn’t possible, you can visit RavenDrumFoundation.org and hit the donate button. There will also be auctions on site at the event and auctions online following the event where items autographed at the show will be up for grabs.
We also discussed the show with Peter Criss original Kiss drummer being a big part of the event. Billy Amendola is serving as musical director, legendary drummer Bernard Purdie will be part of it as well as former Blue Oyster Cult members Joe and Albert Bouchard, Corky Laing from Mountain, and more special guests. Tickets are available at RavenDrumFoundation.org.
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