When I first joined the school’s string orchestra, I had instantly fallen in love with the program and the people who had quickly become my second family. However, one thing that was evident was that the class was struggling. I had recognized that we were a relatively new branch, yet, we especially struggled with enrollment and retention of members despite several years passing. This problem stemmed from various issues. To begin with, we weren’t able to perform enough. Unlike the other programs in the music department, we only had three performances a year including a single judged performance at the neighboring school and two home concerts. The lack of performances affected the appeal of the program to potential and active members. The absence of visibility also caused people to mistake us for band and choir kids. That is when I figured change started in leadership and decided to run for an officer position. In order to broaden the program and provide opportunities for the orchestra, I had to start with publicity. Once I became president, I advocated for the creation of a social media platform. In order to run this account and promote the orchestra digitally, I established the position of Publicity. Not only did this assist my plan of broadening the orchestra, but it also gave the current members a chance to become involved. Another weakness the orchestra suffered from was the lack of involvement of the members. By welcoming them into these positions, they found an interest in advocating for the orchestra and even decided to commit to the program all four years. With our new tools, we took every chance we got to promote the class. We took advantage of club rush, freshmen orientation, open house, and more. Only this time we hosted our own booth rather than combining with the band and color guard. Little by little, we filled 2 interest forms rather than collecting less than 10 sign ups. However, once we had a promising amount of newcomers and zero dropouts, we were told we would have a change in music directors. Our new music director had worked with groups like ours before; still, as he was adjusting to his new role, the newer members weren’t receiving the training required in order to prepare for our first concert. As the previous 2nd violin section leader, I was responsible for tracking my section and helping them perform to their best abilities, however, concerned the orchestra would now struggle musically, I decided to step up and take on additional roles. I taught myself the basics of conducting and studied unfamiliar instruments to assist all sections. However, building my skill was only the beginning of the resolution. In order to solve the true issue at hand, I had to tend to those who needed the help the most. In response, I spent countless hours after school analyzing music and studying the students’ individual strengths and challenges. This helped me introduce music to them in a form they could understand in a manner that would still preserve their interest in remaining in the program. As for the newer students, their music was simplified and annotated so that the seemingly meaningless symbols on paper could translate into playable music. Eventually, the class went from learning the name of their instrument to being able to successfully earn an "Excellent" and “Superior” rating during our judged festival. Seeing the string orchestra's growth made me realize that all it took was leaders seeing our potential and being willing to create change even if the results came in slow and steady.