With a school as gung-ho about serving as K-Park, it’s hard to find any organization that doesn’t give back to the community. The fine arts department is no different.

This spring the K-Park orchestra will perform their second annual benefit concert. The event was set up last year to give back to charities in and out of the community.

All proceeds will go to the Wounded Warrior Project, a non-profit organization that provides aid to injured service members.

Billed as “The History of American Music,” the event will feature musical styles of western, cinema and modern eras.

This year, director Joshua Taylor has passed the concert on to the students to plan everything from what charity to sponsor to the actual content of the program.

It’s part of an action that took place at the beginning of the year to allow the students to run the program themselves. Students have been able to make programs for events, lead sectionals, speak at concerts, plan parties, and organize other ensembles like cello choir and the after-school community group Giving Bach.

“I worried a lot over the beginning of the year if it was going to work, but immediately it seemed to go so well,” Taylor said. “I wasn’t worrying about stuff, stuff was getting planned and I hadn’t done much at all for it.”

The first two years that Taylor worked at K-Park he looked at what they did and saw that there was so much potential to do more. Since then he’s added new  traditions that the program will keep and ones that are too much and unnecessary.

The concert was on his list of things to add in order to get the students involved with service and giving back.

The students have made progress since last year’s concert and they feel like the overall theme will encourage people to attend this year.

They want the concert to give off a fun vibe and be more of a show that people will enjoy. They know all the tricks and trades of the planning and hope everything will translate to the audience.

Junior Emily Ausburn, one of the students planning the concert this year and one of the main contributors for the concert last year, hopes that this year’s effort will be reflected in the show.

“We’re way more prepared this year.” Ausburn said, “There’s so much that we can do and everyone is really coming together with this.”

Students like senior Jared Elliott are excited in more ways than one. Elliott’s mother works with the Wounded Warrior project as a leader for its Houston region.

“It’s great that we get to help the vets,” he said. “It will really bring their spirits up.” Orchestra members like senior and orchestra president Caroline Pagano want to bring the school together and watch a great show while supporting a great cause.

“There are so many good players in orchestra,” Pagano said. “This is their opportunity to really play for a cause and have fun while doing it.”

Last year’s  benefit concert raised over $3,000 for the Redemption Song Foundation, which provides for the Batwa pygmy people in Uganda. Taylor wanted to focus on a charity that’s more in the immediate area for this year’s concert.

“We’re dealing with a charity that touches everyone in some way or capacity,” Taylor said. “Everyone knows, or most people know someone who went into the military and might possibly know someone who was wounded and suffering,”

Taylor believes that the concert will give a good response from the community. “The Wounded Warrior project does so much for those people,” Taylor said. “I hope we can do the same.”

The concert will take place Friday, March 31 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10.