PORTLAND, Ore. — Last April, an alarming email dropped into the inboxes of families at Ethos Music Center, a nonprofit organization in North Portland that provides music lessons to kids in the community, with a special emphasis on kids who wouldn't normally have access to music lessons.
Ethos was short around $300,000 the email said, although financial statements and tax returns for 2023 had not yet been finalized. But the picture was grim: cash flow for 2024 was anticipated to be low, and "Ethos has no clear path to raising the cash it needs to operate beyond the next four to six months."
That was five months ago.
Today, Ethos said, the financial picture is much more hopeful, thanks in large part to members of their community, the people they've served for more than 26 years, coming together to forge a path ahead for the school.
When parent Anneliese Davis heard the news back in April, she said she went over to the school — she lives nearby — and asked how she could help. Her daughter, Beatrix Heller, has taken lessons at Ethos since before Kindergarten, and it's become like a second home to her.
"When she walks in the door everybody, all the teachers in the front desk staff know her and say hi," Davis said.
"I could walk through this place in my sleep," Beatrix said. "I could find every single room."
She's taken piano, voice, guitar, drum, and ukulele classes at Ethos, and is now a part of the Rock Band class, which gives young kids the skills and courage to get up on stage and perform for an audience.
"Sometimes I try to like work the crowd, and sometimes they go with it, and sometimes they don't go with it," Beatrix said, with a carefree attitude not seen in most 13-year-olds. "My last most recent performance, I told a joke to the crowd and literally nobody laughed. But I was like okay, whatever, I'm gonna play the ukulele now."
It's a place of connection and refuge, she said — that 6th grade "really sucked" for her, but she could always look forward to coming to Ethos on Mondays.
Ethos has been that place for countless kids in Oregon for nearly three decades. They offer music lessons on a sliding scale, with deep discounts for children on free and reduced lunch, as well as programs for immigrant children, underserved schools, and children in rural areas. They also have events for adults and families.
It's a mission that resonated with piano teacher Morgan Wilhelm, who started teaching at Ethos two years ago, and it brings them joy to see the kids in their class grow.
"When they sit down and they can look at music and they can play it and they recognize what they're doing, they get so excited," Wilhelm said. "I've had kids like literally jumping in the back of the classroom because they're just so happy that they're able to do this."
While Ethos' financial crisis was brewing, the teachers at the school, coincidentally, began unionizing. Wilhelm said they were hoping for better pay, more say over their scheduling, and prep time, among other things. But when they found out about the financial situation, the union's focus expanded to helping save the school where they worked.
"Our biggest priority as a union, as employees, as a workforce is a longer lasting Ethos," Wilhelm said. "We want to keep this organization which has won awards, which is so important to this area of town, we want to keep it alive."
The teachers won their union election, becoming only the second unionized music school in the U.S. While some unions may have an acrimonious relationship with their employers, Wilhelm and other teachers said the relationship is collaborative, and they've been working to find new ways to fund the school. Some teachers have held fundraisers, benefit concerts, garage sales, and taken on things like donor relations and grant applications.
Meanwhile, parents like Davis are also working to bring in funding for the school. She and several others joined the school's Board of Directors, and an "exponential increase" in volunteers have contributed to fundraising, grant writing, instrument repairs, facilities maintenance and strategic planning.
"We are deepening community partnerships, getting creative with income sources, and are hosting multiple benefit concerts and events per month," Acting Executive Director Megan Moran wrote in an email to KGW.
Moran wrote when it comes to the music teachers union, Ethos intends to lift up the music instructor profession as a field, and "ideally, this dialogue positively impacts not only students within our walls, but those across the nation as well."
Ethos still has a long way to go on the journey to thriving, Moran wrote, but the school intends to offer a full slate of youth and adult music programming this fall. If you'd like to donate, enroll, or attend an event, you can go to Ethos.org.