WYANDOTTE, Mich. – A young trumpet player in Wyandotte set up shop in his own driveway and played a concert that raised hundreds of dollars for a good cause.
When a band student from Roosevelt High School in Wyandotte learned practice was canceled for the rest of the year, he decided to take his trumpet outside for his whole neighborhood to enjoy.
Fin Gomez, 17, is the drum major for the band at the high school.
“It’s what I look forward to,” Gomez said. “You wake up, go to school, and it’s freedom by playing.”
While all of his school trumpet practices and concerts have been canceled due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) shutdown, Gomez held his own concert last week from the front porch.
“I had Sinatra, jazz, Dixieland, American, a little bit of everything,” Gomez said.
The sound of his trumpet attracted the whole neighborhood.
“People were like, ‘Play this, play this, play this,’” said Rose Rudisill, founder of Downriver for Veterans. “It was amazing.”
What started out as a simple concert quickly turned into a way for Gomez to give back to the community.
“My neighbor jokingly asked me to play a song so I said, ‘You should give me a tip box,’ and we laughed about it and so we just went for it,” Gomez said.
The tip box was put at the end of the driveway, and the neighbors began to donate.
“He is amazing, and he raised over $600 for us,” Rudisill said.
Gomez donated the money to Downriver for Veterans, which used it to buy food and feed more than 400 employees at Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital and firefighters.
“We’re really not surprised because does do these things,” Gomez’s grandmother, Gloria Portillo, said.
He’s preparing for another porch concert at 6 p.m. Thursday on 22nd Street off of Ford Avenue.
“You can drive by, pull up, put a tip in the box, hang out for a little, but you know, practice social distancing, have fun,” Gomez said.
“To see that this 17-year-old is so compassionate that he’s going to sit on his front porch no matter what the weather is just to give some people some normalcy -- I think it’s wonderful and I think we need it,” Rudisill said.
You can also stay home and watch Gomez’s concert on Facebook live. He’ll broadcast from the Downriver and Friends page.