A sophomore at Darlington High School has been working with the music teacher at McHenry Primary to raise money for McHenry’s music program.

Music has always been a huge influence in the life of Emily Thurmond. Her love for music has led her to help McHenry raise money for their music program so that music can continue to inspire students starting at a young age.

Emily is a very busy young lady, but she still finds time to help out in her community because she loves doing community service projects. In addition to her many community service projects, Emily is on the Darlington tennis team, swim team, softball team and she is also a member of the choir. She is also very active in her church.

Although Emily says that her voice is her main instrument, she also plays some piano and guitar.

It is crazy that this girl can even find time to sleep at night, much less come up with a community service project on her own.

The Music for McHenry project was first started in January when Emily contacted Mandi Snow, the music teacher at McHenry, about what she intended to do. Then, Emily and her mom went to the school and met Snow to talk about the details.

“The teacher was so enthusiastic about the project,” said Emily.

Emily thought that selling T-shirts would be a great way to raise money for the McHenry music program. She designed the shirts by herself with a little help from the people at Cedarstream in Cedartown, where the shirts were printed.

She then started to get the word out about the project and the T-shirts. Emily set up a Facebook page for the project as well, where people could visit to check out the shirts and the information about the project.

McHenry also sent flyers home with the students and Emily was able to set up at the McHenry Circus and sell some of the shirts.

Emily has been selling kid sized shirts for $10 and adult sized shirts for $15.

Her original goal was to raise $500 in proceeds to buy new instuments for the McHenry music program.

Once she met the $500 goal, she bumped the goal up to $1,000. Emily has now sold about 120 shirts and has raised $900 for the Music for McHenry project.

“I am so excited that I have raised this much money so far,” said Emily.

All of the proceeds from the project will buy new instruments for the music program at McHenry.

Also, Emily has agreed to throw a pizza party for the grade that sells the most T-shirts.

Emily said that she has enjoyed this project so far and that she hopes to finish up the project by the end of the school year so that the students can use the new instruments starting next school year.

She hopes that she is able to go to McHenry and play with the students when they get the new instruments.

“They just look so happy with what they have that I can’t wait to see what they look like when they have more,” said Emily.

Emily hopes to expand the Music for McHenry project in the future and maybe try raising money a different way next year.

She says that her friends have all bought T-shirts and they have all been very supportive of the project.

Music is not just some hobby for Emily or a way to help out in the community, she plans on making it her career. Although she does not know yet where she wants to attend college, she knows for sure that she wants to major in musical therapy.

“I hope to help people using my love for music,” said Emily.

If anyone wishes to purchase one of the Music for McHenry shirts or find out more about the project, they can visit the Music for McHenry Facebook page.

Morgan Clemones is a student at Pepperell High School and is interning at the Rome News- Tribune.