♪ This is a soundcheck for you ♪ ♪ People, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ - Come in with sax.

(cool music) - We are Raynah's Little Big Band and we are so excited to be hosting this Tuesday's Harmonize Peoria Garage Band Open Stage.

(audience cheering) Kindall is incredible.

She does Peoria Music Live, Harmonize Peoria, and it's a really amazing nonprofit.

- My name's Kindall Reuschel, this is Harmonize Peoria and we make music accessible.

♪ Took your picture down ♪ ♪ To look at it from time to time ♪ - In 2012, I was a single mom of four kids and we had just gotten into a not so great living situation.

I used my tax return that year to buy an old RV.

I had a plan to get out, to be able to get us our own place, but things just started falling apart.

So one day I went, "Okay, God, I messed up.

I haven't been listening.

I don't know what I'm actually supposed to do, but until you tell me, I'm going to put an ad online to clean houses."

I wasn't even that good.

(chuckles) And over time, I got more clients.

By 2017, everything was going pretty smoothly and I kind of discovered the live music scene, thought, "I wonder if Peoria has live music."

I started Peoria Music Live to promote all the live music in the area.

So I had the cleaning business and Peoria Music Live, and I was volunteering at Central and I asked them, "What bands do you know of?"

Over and over, the different classes kept saying things like, "How would we know somebody in a band?"

That's when the first idea for Harmonize Peoria started.

My cleaning business is what funded most of Harmonize Peoria in the beginning.

I realized I needed to choose one or the other, which was really difficult because, at that time, the cleaning company was the one paying the bills, but the music is where my heart was.

♪ It's derivative ♪ - [Kindall] Harmonize Peoria is a nonprofit organization that was created to make music more accessible, specifically those under the age of 21.

So we have our Pay What You Can Afford lessons program.

We help students get instruments if they don't have them and need them.

- My name is Lexie and my son is Zion, he's eight years old.

I take him to Harmonize Peoria because he is passionate about the drums.

- It makes me happy because it feels like, when I hear it, I feel like it's just so cool and it teaches all about music.

(lively drum music) - It's been a blessing.

It's been such a blessing because I knew that this was something I wanted to get him involved with.

We're like a one income family, so I knew that I couldn't afford that outside of being able to pay minimal payments each month.

So it's been so good.

- And I really have fun playing the drums.

(lively drum music) - [Kindall] We also do a summer program called Garage Band Open Stage.

♪ Stop making a fool out of me ♪ - Every week there's a different band that will host and individuals from the community, young and old, get to sign up and perform.

They can either have a backing band if they want, or they can come up solo, they can come jam, they can sing.

Anything that they want is at their disposal because of this.

Everybody, please put your hands together for Christian.

(audience applauding) - My name is Christian, I'm a 15-year-old singer songwriter.

I think it gathers the community together and it's really good for kids who can come up and play music.

- [Raynah] The community in Peoria and specifically here at the open stage is really loving and supportive and it's a great way to dip your toe in if you want to be a performer, this is a great place to do it.

- So if you're a parent who is having a hard time financially, but you know that your kid would flourish in an environment of learning music and having a desire to pursue instruments, Harmonize Peoria is an awesome way to go about doing that.

(gentle music) - Harmonize Peoria is more than just a program or a collection of programs, it is much bigger than that to me.

It is a way to impact, not just Peoria, but really the world.

The more art and music that is happening in a city, the more prosperous the city is.

I really believe that Peoria is an arts destination, that people should come here to experience all the art and music that we have.

We can't just focus on what's happening right now, we need to build a foundation so that the next generation can keep it going.

(lively music) (lively music continues)