The Ypsilanti Community Band Association is a parent run organization that supports the Ypsilanti Community Schools Band Program through monetary assistance and volunteer hours to make the activities of the band program happen on a yearly basis. Ypsilanti Community Schools, serving K through 12th grade students, is located in southeast Michigan in the city of Ypsilanti, 35 miles southwest of Detroit. In the 2015-2016 school year, 4,145 students enrolled with 77 percent of the students being minorities and 67 percent being African American or mixed race.The families that comprise the district have a low enough individual family incomes that the entire district has been determined to be a “free lunch” district as defined by the federal poverty guidelines that determine the district’s free lunch status. Seventy three percent of the families in the district meet 100% - 133% of the federal poverty limit. To give that real numbers, it means that a family of four makes approximately $32,000 a year or less.

Our goal this year is to offer our students an educational and exciting opportunity. The project we are hoping to fund is Wind Symphony Tour . The total cost of sending 58 musicians and 8 chaperones is $42,900. The cost breaks out to $650 per person. We want to take the students who participate in the YCHS Wind Symphony Band to Boston, MA, for a three-day tour. Included in the trip will be educational tours at the John F Kennedy Library, Harvard University and the Freedom Trail Tour. Most exciting for our students however will the a master class with a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and an opportunity to see the Boston Symphony perform Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. We are hoping to fund this project at least partially with grant funds.