(bright music) (bright music continues) (gentle music) - 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, Harmonize Peoria is an awesome way to go about doing that.

(gentle music continues) - The community is the most important part, I feel like, because when you feel like you're not alone, there's not words to explain that feeling.

I don't feel alone anymore.

- Way to go.

- Every one of these caskets has got my fingerprints on it.

There's not one of them that goes out here that I haven't, that I do everything.

That this is going to go to somebody, somebody that they love, and we try to give them the best of what we have.

(tool whirring) - The key word for me is generosity, you know?

It's true that we're trying to come up here and do something that means something to us, but if it doesn't mean something to the people watching it, then I don't think we're doing our job, and, also, we can't spread that creativity and joy.

♪ La la la la la ♪ (pleasant music) (upbeat music) - People.

♪ 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) (audience cheering) (bright music) (people chattering) - [Instructor] So it's a little more secure.

- Right between the shoulder blades.

Cool, cool.

You look cool, do you feel cool?

- Yeah.

- Do you wanna look cool?

- Yeah.

- [Instructor] Good, because you do.

(bright music continues) - Prairieland Adaptive is a newer nonprofit to the Central Illinois area.

We are a nonprofit for adaptive sports, recreation and fitness programming for youth and adults with physical disability and visual impairment.

Essentially, what we're trying to do is fill a gap in this area and expand adaptive sports activities, recreation activities.

We're here to support those groups that already exist, and then we're trying to expand opportunities, really advocate and educate the community about what adaptive sports are and the importance of them and why it's a needed thing here in this area.

(bright music continues) - I know of no place in Springfield that I could go or even reach out to about adaptive sports.

I didn't have a community to ask.

(people chattering) - I've been a therapist, a physical therapist in outpatient neuro rehab for almost five years now.

The biggest challenge from the rehab to discharge to community, it's that bridge, it's figuring out how to get people back into life again, not just being able to walk or be independent in their wheelchair, but figuring out quality of life and community engagement and getting back out there and doing the things that they loved.

In a very similar fashion, it's establishing a relationship and a partnership with a business or entity that's already flourishing and very successful in this community and then bringing in the resources, the education and the training.

- [Instructor] Hi, Baylor.

Nice and strong.

- First Ascent Downtown has been very excited and on board with trying to figure out how to do adaptive climbing.

A couple years ago, some medical students, they were trying to get it off the ground.

I ended up getting connected with them and now we're planning on doing like once a month or every other month adaptive rock climbing sessions.

First Ascent hosts it and then, Prairieland Adaptive, we're coming in with volunteer support right now and also trying to help get more established equipment down there so that anybody can come down whenever.

- [Instructor] You're doing great, Zoey.

- The First Ascent first adaptive climbing, this was my first real adaptive sport that I got to try last fall, and it was so awesome because they had volunteers that they had specially trained here to help adaptive athletes and climbers.

And I felt so supported, they answered all my questions, they made me feel at ease and comfortable.

- [Instructor] All right, let's double check everything so we got the harness.

- Callen has used a wheelchair his whole life, so he doesn't know anything different, but he also really wants to do what his peers do.

And that be like adaptive sports, this climbing is really cool, it just allows him to do those things.

- [Instructor] All right, we're all good back here.

- When I'm climbing, I can do like anything, I feel like I can do anything.

Like, once you get to the top of the wall, you feel like I made it to the top and then you just feel good.

- We heard about what they were doing here at First Ascent, and so we brought her and she kind of got hooked on it.

It's something that we've been planning to start doing and getting more involved in and now here we are.

- The first one I climbed, I took like an hour or so, and then the second one, it took like 10 minutes.

I just love to climb a lot.

- Can I get some knucks?

That was super good.

(people clapping) - [Cody] A year ago, we hosted our first event.

It was the Adapt and Conquer Expo, where we brought in somewhere around 10 groups of a variety of adaptive sports from wheelchair basketball to track to a running clinic for amputees, rock climbing, adaptive fitness, and it was a big success.

- This was the first one that had adaptive sports that you could try, and it was in Central Illinois, it was in Peoria, and I was so amazed that these organizations exist.

- That's why we're here.

It's the magic that happens in these events that matters.

It's getting people out and just living life again.

We don't have much of this opportunity yet.

How cool would it be to have something established where people only have to drive 30, 45 minutes?

Give it a shot, try something new, get connected with somebody new, make a new friend, and give yourself a chance to just surprise yourself.

I think we have a place for everybody.

- Hey Zoey, I'm Cassie.

- Hi.

- [Cassie] Are you ready to climb this big wall?

- Yeah.

- The green one, or?

- Yeah.

- [Cassie] You're gonna go all the way to the top?

- Yeah.

(joyful music) - Meeting Cody and other people with disabilities, it just opened up my whole world.

The community is the most important part, I feel like, because when you feel like you're not alone, there's not words to explain that feeling.

I don't feel alone anymore.

- I'm not in it for the business side of it.

It's about impacting people's lives.

It's about making a difference.

Even if it's only one person's life, making a difference in them because their lives matter.

I wanna see people get out there and be successful and get back into the community.

- [Instructor] All right, nice job.

Whoo.

(people clapping) - Good job.

Whoo!

- [Parent] Woohoo!

(laughs) Look at that smile.

(gentle music) - My name is Ron Skaggs, I'm the owner of Cole Creek Creations and we make barn wood caskets, out of old barn wood and barns throughout the Northern Illinois.

Well, I'm one of 10, lived out in the country and my dad used to make toys for us and what have you, and he ended up remodeling homes and building cabinets and stuff.

And I learned from him how to do a lot of things.

I loved woodworking because we did what we did.

We got away from that when we got into the heavy equipment and the trucks and what have you.

But when that all fell apart in 1980, then I bought a truck, went trucking for 4.2 million miles.

But I've had this casket idea in my head all these years I was driving.

When you drive that many miles and many hours a day that I was driving, folks, you have a lot of time to think.

I had lost a brother by then and one of the reasons why things fell apart back in 1980.

And then another brother was killed later on a few years later.

And I just noticed there was something missing in the funeral business, I guess, that needed more personalization.

This old wood has always intrigued me and I built quite a few things out of this old wood and decided I could do this.

So we've been at it 14 years, I think it is this year.

It's taken me quite a few years to get these to look like they look.

Yeah, here is gonna be hanging right here, so it's gonna lose a little bit of that one.

To build a new casket out of the old wood, because there's so many different pieces and kinds, some are more rustic than others, I'll have something in my head.

Do I need something with a lot of rustic, a lot of cracks and nails and a lot of character or do we go for something a little smoother and better?

So I may spend half a morning doing this.

Yeah, that's probably got too much, you know, something like that.

Or here's one here, but they got character that you just can't find anywhere.

Now, we're ready to start on a new one here, I selected a board that's got a lot of character and knots and we're gonna start cleaning it up.

(tool whirring) Particular board, I would probably use it for the end pieces and I would try to space this out to where my handle fits in between these two knots.

(tool whirring) (positive music) Being able to personalize these and then, at the end, after the funeral, the family gets over $300 worth of stuff back in their hands.

They can take these home with them, the six on the side and two big long ones on the end.

And they're all handmade.

There's nobody in the world has these but us.

They are two pieces.

You can move them together, put in a pistol or a knife, something of value of that person.

Fishing poles, there's been several firemen buried in our caskets, they put a piece of fire hose and a nozzle on there.

There's been quite a few ladies buried in there, they've hung aprons on here.

These are the keys that lock the casket, there's two of them in there and they are the old time skeletons keys from the 1800s, and they're solid brass and the family gets to keep these and that's what locks these caskets.

I have pictures that you can pick and put your own picture in there.

And last but not least, you can hang something up here that means something to them.

An old hat, old pair of gloves, something they must have worn.

My wife makes all the interiors.

- We have a lot of people that seem to like the camouflage.

We have a camouflage that has a faux leather around the edges of the pillow to kind of offset it.

This one seems to suit a lot of farmers or hunters.

We have a couple over here that are for just ladies pretty much.

It's got a kind of a neutral flower print on it.

It just is representative of the lifestyle that somebody had.

It just speaks to them.

Like I said, it's not going to speak to a lot of people, a lot of people are gonna want perfect and shiny and glossy, and that's just simply not us.

And so, this speaks to the people that we are and the people that we relate to.

- It's rewarding that you can give somebody something that they can show what that person did with their life.

You asked me about my brothers.

When I build these and I come up with these ideas, that's who I'm thinking of, when my dad, if I'd have had something like this for my brothers, it'd be hanging on the wall of fame up here and the key would be in my pocket.

I just wonder what they would think of me for doing this, and I think they'd be proud of me.

I'm sure proud of all of them.

Every one of these caskets has got my fingerprints on it.

There's not one of them that goes out here that I haven't, that I do everything, build to, and then my wife does all the interiors and we both have a hard time when we get to thinking about, you know, every family, this is gonna go to somebody, somebody that they love and we try to give them the best of what we have and hopefully they can personalize this enough to make it part of their family.

The most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life, they're not for everyone, the ones that they are for is the reason why we do it for, and you don't have to explain it, I mean, it's unspoken.

It's just a wonderful thing that you feel in your heart.

(bright music) (wind whooshing) (bright music continues) - Hey, I'm Nicole and welcome aboard.

Welcome to Flotsam.

(bright music continues) Flotsam is a floating raft that's been built out into a stage that holds a bandstand, aerial points, places for a lot of different kinds of circus and puppetry to happen, and hopefully pull off a lot of different surprises.

- [Performer] We're a floating circus.

- It's the last humans floating on a garbage raft and they're in a world of invasive mutant fish and maybe they survive or maybe those really are the last humans.

(bright music continues) - I think it's a really cool project, it's emergent, it brings communities together, it doesn't need any advertising, people just hear about it by word of mouth.

It's this really old-fashioned thing, and seeing audiences just kind of materialize on the riverbank to watch our show, it's pretty magical.

- [Audience] Whoa!

(bright music continues) (bright music continues) - Our boat is our stage.

The show all happens on the boat.

We tie off at the riverbank, and then the audience all gathers on the shore and watches the show.

- [Nicole] This year, we're doing the Illinois Waterway.

This is Flotsam's seventh year, and Jason Webley that created it picks a different river every year.

Last year, I did the Erie Canal into New York with them, and this year we're doing the Illinois Waterway.

We started in St.

Louis, we're gonna end in Chicago.

(bright music continues) - The two most common questions are like, "You don't actually drive that thing from place to place?"

And the answer is yes.

And then, the other question is like, "Yeah, do y'all live and sleep on that boat?"

And the answer is sort of yes, I do, I sleep on the boat almost every night on tour, and there's three of us that do.

We also have a ground crew.

We've got an old school bus that I built out, and that holds most of the crew.

This is also where I live when I'm piloting the boat on the river.

There's like a long piece of pipe that comes up here and I just use that to steer the boat.

- This has to move every day.

I think it hits a grand speed of about five miles an hour if we're lucky, so you'll just have really kind of long, beautiful days on the river.

(clacker clicking) - The old shows, the tented shows, they don't go to the small towns anymore like they used to in the old days.

So a town this size will have very little in the ways of live performance.

To bring something here that's, I think, very generous, public facing show, has a little something for everyone.

Our hope is that they treat it as a true gift and that they're able to come back together and share something special and enjoy live performance, live art.

(audience cheering) (upbeat music) (performers shouting) - [Jason] I feel like we're part of something out of a fairytale.

It feels like we're doing something impossible and epic and really magical and tangibly rewarding.

- [Kalan] The purpose of this project in a wide angle sense as I see it is to sort of say that anything is sort of possible.

(audience applauding) (intriguing music) (upbeat music) - When we get to a town and show up and there's like a small crowd, but then you start seeing the people rolling down the hill and it goes from being like a modest crowd to like, "Where did all these people come from?

People are still coming.

Where are they coming from?"

I love that feeling.

Every day, when that happens, I feel kind of giddy.

- The key word for me is generosity, you know?

It's true that we're trying to come up here and do something that means something to us, but if it doesn't mean something to the people watching it, then I don't think we're doing our job.

And, also, we can't spread that creativity and joy.

So to me, as a clown, as a circus performer, the reason I love this art, you know, more than theater or film, the reason I love circus and clowning is because it's generous.

(audience cheering) (drums banging) If the audience isn't with us, you know, if they're not smiling, if they're not gasping, if they're not applauding, then we haven't done our job.

And so we really need to be with the people and share what we, you know, bring our best to the show.

And I end the show completely drenched in sweat, and it's a cathartic experience, and I just, I have a smile on my face every single time.

♪ La la la la ♪ ♪ La la la la la la ♪ ♪ La la la la ♪ (pleasant music) - [Announcer] Thank you for joining us on this journey.

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(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)