Neal McCoy’s event to help children in East Texas will be live this year

LONGVIEW, Texas (KLTV) - A tradition each fall that has become a signature of the generosity of East Texans begins this week in Longview,

Neal McCoy’s East Texas Angel Network begins it’s 27th year of helping families who have children with disabilities or illness.

It’s tugged on the heart-strings of East Texans for over two decades.

“People that didn’t know about it even 10 years ago, five years ago, they keep hearing about it. Now just about everybody knows about it, now we just got to convince people that they need to get involved and do what they can to help us,” McCoy says.

It started 29 years ago when McCoy held a benefit concert for a child with bone cancer.

Neal and his wife realized that working families simply didn’t have the means to pay bills and medical costs at the same time.

“It’s the smallest things, from keeping the electricity on, or keeping a car payment paid,” he says.

And the Angel Network was born.

“When a child’s sick and father wants to go be with that child during surgery or something but can’t afford it, then we’ll pay his salary for a little bit so ge can be there. We know these children and these families still need it. The big concert this week. Concert, golf tournament September 24-25,” says Neal.

The concert was impacted but not cancelled by Covid last year.

“We are live streaming the concert. We had to last year because of Covid. We couldn’t do a concert. But live streaming we ended up raising a lot of money from donations,” Neal says.

For McCoy it has become an signature event, and something he cares about deeply.

“In the worst times, that’s when you should give. The most important thing is family. We just want to help wherever we can,” he says.

Neal’s guests at the Saturday night concert at the Belcher center in Longview are Jo Dee Messina and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

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