About 20 years ago, Kevin Gross was severely injured in a motorcycle crash and endured great pain from it. As a result of the attempts to deal with the pain from it, he became addicted to painkillers and spent a long, frustrating struggle trying to free himself from this addiction. One of the things that he found out from this struggle was that there were no in-house treatment facilities that had the room to treat him. He had to go to a facility in the Philadelphia area. Ever since then, he has made it a personal crusade to try and to get more in-house treatment facilities opened not only in this area but throughout the state.

However, these type of facilities cost money to build and to operate, that it is what prompted him to think of the idea of promoting and hosting musical concerts that involve front-line acts as a way to help raise money for these facilities. His first attempt at this type of venture will occur on Sunday, April 29, at the Valley Inn in DuBoistown, in an event he has dubbed, “Rockin For Life.”

The event will be a concert of 17 different bands of various, musical genres. Gross said he reached out to the musical community and was very gratified at the response he has gotten from them.

“Rockin’ for Life is a nonprofit organization raising money to help pay for and staff an in-house rehab center in Lycoming County,” Gross told Webb Weekly. “We are going to be doing many shows with band entertainment to raise money for this facility and to be able to run the facility all on donation money. Our first show is Sunday, April 29th at the Valley Inn in DuBoistown all proceeds will go to West Branch Drug and Alcohol Commission. My long-term goals are to reach out to every major city in Pennsylvania and try to get enough funds through entertainment to run every in-house facility. And then I would like to get petitions to make it state law the first time someone overdoses, or gets caught using drugs, gets 30 days in rehab, no questions asked, the second time would be 90 days and the third time one year. And, it’s going to be staffed with doctors to diagnose what’s wrong with the people of why they are doing what they’re doing, and how we can get them rehabilitated and if they need jobs we will try to get them jobs and counseling on site.”

Gross is hoping to hold major concerts twice a year at the Lycoming County Fairgrounds as further fundraisers for this project.

“I would like to have one concert be a rock show headlined by a major act and to have a second country concert, also to be headlined by a top act,” Gross said.

He believes you only go through this world once, and that you should try to leave as positive an impact as you can. He is hopeful that by organizing this fundraising effort, that might make possible additional treatment for those under the scourge of drugs and opioids, that he will leave his own positive mark on society.

“I don’t want to see the taxpayers to have to bear the full brunt of dealing with this problem and that by raising funds through these concerts that we can lessen the burden on our taxpayers,” Gross concluded.