Long-running local music lovefest adds Knox-based community nonprofit as 2026 beneficiary
By Steve Wildsmith
For more than a decade, Waynestock: For the Love of Drew has had a singular mission: to offer a hand to folks who need a little bit of help.
Sometimes, the weekend’s beneficiary has been singular. It grew out of a community effort in 2011 to offer support to longtime Knoxville music writer (and BLANK contributor) Wayne Bledsoe. Three years ago, it raised money for beloved local musician/businessman J.C. Haun, who was recovering from a horrific ATV accident.
Other years, the causes have been institutional: WDVX, The Pilot Light, Knoxville Community Radio. This year’s beneficiary happens to be one of the latter: Centro Hispano de East Tennessee’s Power of Attorney legal clinics, a program designed to provide families with stability and protection before a crisis strikes.
Waynestock takes place Thursday through Saturday, Jan. 29-31, at Relix Variety Theatre in Knoxville’s Happy Holler neighborhood. Admission is $10 per night, with raffle tickets available for an additional $10. As always, those raffle prizes are sweet: everything from gift certificates to local businesses to weekend passes to Big Ears Festival to a custom-made guitar from South Coast Luthiery, all in support of a cause organizers say aligns perfectly with the festival’s community-first ethos.
(Editor’s note: BLANK Publisher Rusty Odom and contributors Wayne Bledsoe and Steve Wildsmith are part of the Waynestock planning committee.)
For Centro Hispano, the support comes at a crucial time. The nonprofit has spent the past 20 years working alongside Latino families across East Tennessee, offering education, workforce development, youth and family engagement and community-building initiatives. In the past year alone, the organization served 3,313 community members, logged more than 5,000 hours of one-on-one support and coordinated nearly 6,000 volunteer hours.
“The services Centro Hispano provides are more critical now than ever,” says Paola Medina Rioja, the organization’s director of development. “In today’s political climate, Latino and immigrant families are facing increased levels of uncertainty – whether related to immigration policy, access to resources, misinformation or belonging.”
Legal help for a complex system
Centro Hispano’s Power of Attorney clinics, which will directly benefit from Waynestock proceeds, were created to address a gap that many families don’t realize exists until it’s too late: access to basic legal protections in the event of an emergency. The clinics focus on preventative legal services, particularly the preparation of Powers of Attorney and related emergency planning documents.
“These documents allow families to designate trusted individuals to make decisions on their behalf in case of emergencies such as floods, fires, tornadoes, medical crises or unexpected detention,” Medina Rioja says. “Without these protections in place, families – especially children – are at serious risk of separation, instability or entering state custody.”
The process is intensive and deeply personal. After learning about the importance of Powers of Attorney – often for the first time – individuals contact Centro Hispano and are added to an interest list. From intake to completion, the organization spends approximately five hours per client, ensuring each family fully understands the documents and their implications.
Centro Hispano partners with Lincoln Memorial University law students, who draft documents in advance, and with volunteer attorneys from the Knoxville Bar Association’s Access to Justice Committee. Each appointment includes an attorney, a notary and two witnesses, and clients leave with completed documents in both Spanish and English – all at no cost.
“To make each event possible, we must reserve a fellowship hall, prepare the full setup and coordinate more than 25 volunteers,” Medina Rioja says. “This program is the only one in our organization operating without specific funding.”
Since launching the initiative in November 2024, Centro Hispano has served 140 clients and created 346 Power of Attorney documents covering care of minors, healthcare decisions and finances. The organization is now preparing for its 12th clinic, scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 7, the weekend after Waynestock.
Behind those numbers are stories that illustrate why the work matters. Medina Rioja recalls one family who reached out just days before the mother was scheduled for an immigration appointment in Nashville.
“The uncertainty was overwhelming for both parents, especially regarding what would happen to their children,” she says.
Centro Hispano quickly coordinated an emergency appointment, bringing together an attorney, notary and witnesses so the family could complete the necessary paperwork in time.
“Although no emergency ultimately occurred, the impact was life-changing,” Medina Rioja says. “The family shared that for the first time, they felt prepared instead of afraid.”
That peace of mind, she emphasizes, is often the most powerful outcome.
“A Power of Attorney is not a simple document,” she says. “It has a profound and positive impact on families’ mental and emotional health because it replaces fear and uncertainty with preparation and confidence.”
While public sentiment around immigration can be deeply polarized, Medina Rioja says Centro Hispano’s mission continues to resonate across ideological lines – particularly when people see the tangible outcomes of the organization’s work.
“When donors see the real impact – families accessing education, workers gaining employment skills, youth thriving, communities becoming stronger – they often recognize that supporting Latino families is not a political stance, but a community investment,” she says.
That framing aligns closely with Waynestock’s origins as a hyper-local event rooted in music, mutual aid and personal connection. Festival organizers have long emphasized that Waynestock isn’t about politics or spectacle, but about showing up for people in meaningful ways. (Although spectacle is certainly part of the draw; when the band Beare takes the stage to close out the weekend, the energy is akin to a tent revival.)
For Centro Hispano, Medina Rioja says, the organization’s work is also about service: giving to those who are unable to advocate for themselves, and doing so with both the repetition and frequency that demonstrate its employees and volunteers are passionate about its mission.
“Centro Hispano is not only providing services – we are building long-term community strength,” she says. “Trust is at the center of everything we do.”
For those unfamiliar with the organization or uncertain about immigrant-focused services, she hopes the message is simple: Latino families are a part of the East Tennessee community, and that community flourishes when those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder are given the opportunity to pull themselves up, one rung at a time.
“Latino families are part of the fabric of East Tennessee,” Medina Rioja says. “They are parents, students, workers, neighbors and friends who, like anyone else, want safety, dignity and opportunity.”
And by pairing live music with direct community impact, Waynestock offers attendees a tangible way to support that vision – one raffle ticket, one sick guitar shred, one shared night of love, laughter and celebration at a time.
“From the beginning when friends came together to help my family after my son Andrew died, Waynestock has been about helping people in the community,” Bledsoe says. “I became one of the planners the following year when we raised money for the family of local musican and friend Phil Pollard, who died in 2011. When we three organizers met this year to decide on a beneficiary, Centro Hispano was the obvious choice.
“It’s an organization that actively helps people in our community who often have nowhere else to turn. I think we’ve all been proud of raising money for every beneficiary every year, but this one seems particularly important right now. Aside from the music, this event is about taking care of each other.”
