Students at Demopolis High School are public relations officers and business managers in the making.

Students have spent weeks coordinating a local concert with Jim Mowery, a singer and former contestant on NBC’s “The Voice.”

Reach and Teach helped set up the venture. Since its inception, the program has worked with high school students across the southeast to execute over 60 concerts on school campuses. The program teaches business, marketing and entrepreneurship concepts by providing high school students the opportunity to plan, promote and execute concerts.

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April Clark, executive director of Reach and Teach and former high school business teacher, helped found the organization in Leighton, Alabama, with Ashlyn Brown, her former student.

“In 2017, we reached out to hundreds of bands and booking agents, all of which turned us down… except one,” Clark said. “The lead singer of The Velcro Pygmies (Cameron Flener) said yes under a few conditions: It had to be a real rock concert, lights out, standing room only, and the students had to help execute the event.”

“I am one of the two students who piloted the first ever Reach and Teach concert,” Brown said. “In high school, I won a website design competition at the Alabama FBLA state conference which qualified me to compete at the national level in California. To raise money, we decided to have a concert.”

Brown was a member of Future Business Leaders of America, a high school business program; Clark was her advisor. Together, the team worked with a school sports and entertainment marketing class to pull off the concert.

Apart from the actual concert, the students have other responsibilities: Hosting a podcast and producing a video broadcast.

Demopolis students have been working through the program over the last few months with the guidance of their marketing teacher, Courtney Kerby.

“This is the second Reach and Teach concert we have put on at Demopolis High School. Our first concert was scheduled for March 2020 but the pandemic made us postpone until October 2021,” Kerby said. “We hope for the Reach and Teach concert to be an annual event at Demopolis.”

“Each school we work with is different because the students’ ideas are different,” Clark said. “We work with schools all across the southeast and it’s exciting to see students’ creativity come to life through this real-world opportunity.”

Reach and Teach is housed in Kerby’s digital marketing class, the second of two in the school’s marketing program. The key goal of this class is to provide hands-on experience with a real-world event as the final product. Students sell sponsorships to local businesses, promote excitement about the concert and encourage fellow classmates to attend.

The concert planning and details are fully in the hands of the students, from the concert title and performer to logos, ticket prices, social media ads and promotional t-shirts. Students even draft their own budget. Sponsorships are sold to local businesses to help keep costs down for students, along with a limited number of VIP tickets that include breakfast and lunch with the band, a t-shirt and front row seats at the concert.

“This program takes a lot of creativity and public speaking. I have seen my students’ confidence grow throughout this program and that is the most rewarding aspect to witness,” Kerby said. “We are very fortunate to have a community that supports our students and our schools.”

The concert will begin at 2:15 p.m on Feb. 1 in the Demopolis High School gymnasium. General admission tickets for students are $15 and VIP tickets for students are $45.

If you would like more information about this concert and/or Reach and Teach, please contact April Clark at (256) 710-0100 or email at [email protected].

You can also check out their website: https://www.reachandteach.rocks/concert-tour.