Terri Hendrix

Grammy Award winners Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines are set to perform at a June 1 fundraising kickoff concert for the proposed OYOU Community Arts Center in Hays County.

OYOU, or Own Your Own Universe, is a project that aims to provide music and art therapy for people with medical conditions and physical disabilities. Hendrix, OYOU's executive director and a San Marcos–based singer-songwriter, said her organization will also provide classes for underprivileged children and offer space for workshops and group therapy.

"Owning my own music has enabled me to do more benefits [and] to work with people who have cancer or do workshops that charge a lot less so people with economic difficulties could attend," said Hendrix, who has released 14 albums on her own label.

"I've been doing this out of pocket for years and years and years," she said. "I started thinking, 'I really need my own place to do what I need to do.'"

After officially forming the nonprofit organization in March, Hendrix said she hopes to raise about $500,000 to purchase land and build a small venue in the San Marcos area. She said many of her fans have offered to contribute their "blue-collar" skills toward the construction project.

"It has made my heart so happy to have this," Hendrix said. "It's kind of taken off on its own."

Because she has openly discussed having epilepsy, Hendrix said she has become a conduit for people to learn they are not alone with conditions such as epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.

"A medical condition can sometimes become what defines you, and I profoundly believe epilepsy does not define me," she said.

Maines is a country music record producer, musician, songwriter and the father of Natalie Maines, the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks.

The concert is scheduled for 6:30–9 p.m. The suggested donation is $25, and tickets are available on the OYOU website, www.ownyourownuniverse.org.