Local band and school districts promote upcoming benefit concert

If you heard rock-and-roll music playing in Ammon during your lunch break, hopefully, you stopped by Chick-fil-A to see a local band put on a show. That band along with two of our local school districts are teaming up for a big benefit concert happening this Saturday — and today they wanted to give the public a free show to promote it.

The band is called Carolina Reapers, and they’re amped up to perform at Rock Ability this weekend for a great cause that will support the Idaho Falls and Bonneville School Districts.

“The goal for Rock Ability is to bring awareness to the special education programs and to the funding that we need in education,” said Amanda Van Orden, a parent volunteer who has a teen with autism.

“Good, makes me feel really good. Make’s me feel like I’m doing something right with what I want to do for my career. So, it’s a good start,” said Carolina Reapers lead guitarist Morgan Selner.

The band has local ties and along with the school districts, they put on Wednesday’s free showcase to get people to come to their benefit concert on Saturday for special needs programs.

“We hope to make it an annual event. We’d like to do this every year, and have it grow and have the community come out. I know my son is going to be there and he’s going to be dancing in front of the crowd because he doesn’t care what people think. We hope that everybody can listen up and just see the beauty in these kids and the program,” said Van Orden.

The proceeds from ticket sales will go toward special education continuation programs, technology, and classroom needs.

“The change I would like to see is that the special needs programs get more help and more funding so that they can learn as much as the other students are,” said Selner.

The benefit concert, Rock Ability, will be Saturday at 1 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m. in the Civic Auditorium. You can choose to go to the concert either before or after the big Emotion Bowl football game.