The nonprofit CreatiVets is transforming a once-abandoned church in Nashville into a 24-hour arts center for veterans and a community hub.

Not only will the new center house the nonprofit's programs, including its songwriting program where veterans work with Nashville songwriters to make music out of their experiences in military service, it will provide a place where veterans can gather any time of day.

CreatiVets co-founder Richard Casper, a Purple Heart recipient, says the center will offer creative outlets when PTSD strikes. It's an idea that resonated with actor/philanthropist Gary Sinise, who helped fund the effort through his Gary Sinise Foundation.

Like so many veterans, he said his PTSD, caused by seeing a close friend die on patrol, would generally come in the middle of the night, when the only places open are bars and other spaces that can be ”destructive.”

A 24-hour center could be a place where veterans could “really get it off their chest, but also turn all that pain into something beautiful.” So he completed his mission that night, then returned to Nashville.

Gary Sinise values that impact. The actor, musician and philanthropist had already signed on to donate $1 million through his foundation to help CreatiVets purchase the building. Sinise’s involvement encouraged two other donors to help finalize the purchase.

The “CSI: NY” star said he believed in CreatiVets’ work and had already seen a similar program in his hometown of Chicago succeed at helping veterans process their wartime experiences.

""Sharing stories is essential to healing," said Sinise. "If you contain all those things, they can self-combust in ways that can be very damaging. And we don't want that to happen. So we teach people at the Gary Sinise Foundation how to tell their stories. And that's what they do at CreatiVets. Tell your story. Sing a song. Figure it out."

David Booth says he is living proof of how CreatiVets can help. And the retired Master Sergeant, who served 20 years in the U.S. Army as a medic and a counterintelligence agent, wishes he participated in the program sooner.

“For me, this was more important than the last year and a half of counseling that I’ve gone through,” said Booth. “It has been so therapeutic.”

After years of being asked, Booth, 53, finally joined CreatiVets’ songwriting program in September. He traveled from his home in The Villages, Florida, to the historic Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, to meet with two successful songwriters – Brian White, who co-wrote Jason Aldean’s “Blame It on You,” and Craig Campbell, of “Outskirts of Heaven” fame – to help him write a song about his life.

Booth told them about his service, including his injury in Iraq in 2006 when the vehicle he was in struck an improvised explosive device and detonated it.

Those experiences became the song “What’s Next.”

Booth hopes “What's Next” becomes available on music streaming services so others can hear his story. CreatiVets has released compilations of its veterans' songs since 2020 in cooperation with Big Machine Label Group, Taylor Swift’s first record label.

“It’s almost like they could feel what I was feeling and put it into the lyrics," said Booth, after hearing the finished version. "It was pretty surreal and pretty awesome.”

Sinise immediately connected with CreatiVets’ mission. When the idea came to dedicate the performance space at the new center to his late son Mac, who died last year after a long battle with cancer, Sinise saw it as “a perfect synergy.”

After the new center was vandalized and its windows broken out, Casper said he was heartbroken, but also inspired knowing part of the center was destined to become the Mac Sinise Auditorium. He decided to take pieces of the broken stained glass windows and transform them into new artwork inspired by Mac Sinise’s music.

Casper surprised Sinise with examples of the artwork created by veterans that was based on his son's songs.