The Harmony Project

Harmony Project harnesses the transformative power of music to increase access to higher education for underserved students by removing the systemic barriers to achievement through academic and social support.

Founded in 2001 with a cohort of only 36 children, Harmony Project began as a public health initiative that seeks to nurture the development of students through the study, practice, and performance of music. Today, our organization annually engages more than 4,000 underserved students across partner sites located within Los Angeles County and North Orange County. We’ve also expanded our catalog of programs and services to include an array of comprehensive academic resources and holistic social support activities such as college access workshops, one-on-one counseling, and student-led mentorships. Harmony Project’s work has received several prominent distinctions over the years including a Coming Up Taller Award (2009), Presidential Citizens Medal (2009), and U.S. Department of Education’s Bright Spot in Hispanic Education (2015).

Harmony Project has established a 23-year track record of working hand-in-hand with teachers, parents, and other community stakeholders to ensure that the unique needs of each of our students are being met. Our organization currently operates within 19 underserved Los Angeles County and North Orange County neighborhoods, including Altadena, Boyle Heights, Compton, Crenshaw, Hawthorne, Hollywood, Koreatown, La Habra, Lawndale, Leimert Park, Lennox, Lynwood, Paramount, Pasadena, San Fernando Valley, South Bay, South Los Angeles, Watts, and West Athens. We’ve established a history of success in the communities we serve as evidenced by:

- 99% of program participants graduated from high school.
- 98% of graduating seniors were accepted to a college or university.
- 72% of graduates are first-generation college students.
- 57% of graduates are pursuing degrees in STEM-related fields.
- 753 out of 872 total alumni have received a Harmony Project College Scholarship
- Our alumni have earned prestigious distinctions/scholarships from esteemed organizations such as the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Posse Scholars, Gates Millennium Scholars Program, and QuestBridge National College Match.
- 25% of our alumni are currently studying at the Top 50 nationally-ranked schools.
- 82% of our alumni are continuing to participate in music-related activities such as enrolling in a college course (37%) or performing in a music group (17%).
- 54% of our alumni have earned a bachelor’s degree by age 24, far surpassing the national average for African American (14%) and Latine (13%) students.
- 29% of recent alumni graduates earned degrees in performing arts career fields.

Harmony Project currently operates within 19 historically marginalized communities of color and annually serves more than 4,000 students located within Los Angeles County and North Orange County. We expanded our service area to North Orange County due in large part to the determination and passion of Jaime Morales, whose daughter Liliana Morales is an alumni of our program and recent graduate from UC San Diego. In Liliana’s college scholarship essay she wrote, “Through Harmony Project I have been given opportunities that I could only dream of, but most importantly I have learned the value of giving back to my community”. This same spirit of service to the community inspired Jaime to establish his own grassroots music education program in La Habra with help from Harmony Project. La Habra launched its programming during the 2018-2019 academic year and served 105 students. It built on that early success during the 2019-2020 academic year by increasing its population size to 142 students.

A large majority of the students we serve at our La Habra program site reside in economically impacted households whose combined family income falls 185% below the federal poverty level and/or attend Title 1 schools in which at least 75% of the student population qualifies for free/reduced lunches. The California Department of Education’s “California School Dashboard'' revealed that 77% of students enrolled in the La Habra City School District are Socioeconomically Disadvantaged and 30% are English Learners. According to the Equity Mapping Tools developed by AdvanceOC, La Habra scored 33 out of 100 on their Social Progress Index and came in at 497 out of 580 cities in terms of Overall Rank. United States Census Bureau data from July 2019 also reveals that only 28.5% of La Habra residents aged 25-years-old and older hold at least a Bachelor’s degree, which falls far below the 40.6% average for Orange County. In addition, Harmony Project’s La Habra program site serves a diverse population of students, 54% of whom self-identify as female and 46% of which are male. When further broken down by ethnicity and race, 1% of participants self-identify as African American, 1% Asian, 9% Caucasian, 83% Hispanic/Latine, 1% Native American, and 5% Multiracial/Other.

The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated many of the struggles low-income families within Los Angeles County and North Orange County previously contended with by adding a host of new issues that ranged from food insecurity to eviction notices. According to internal data gathered by Harmony Project staff, 1 out of 3 families we serve reported being in the midst of “Crisis”. In addition, 1 out of 4 students enrolled in our music education programming reported losing a loved one to COVID-19. As a result, Harmony Project doubled down on the social support efforts provided through our Community and Relational Engagement (CARE) department. CARE prioritizes regular communication with students and their families, provides one-on-one counseling and mental health referrals, and secures vital resources and supplies such as protective masks, school accessories, and direct relief funds to families facing extreme economic hardship.

La Habra