Our June 2026 Newsletter is Out - Click Here to Read Now
Our June 2026 Newsletter is Out - Click Here to Read Now
OpporTUNEity
Music Connections. Community Connections. Records.
Embracing the power of music to change lives and strengthen communities.
OpporTUNEity’s mission is to break the school-to-prison pipeline through transformative, music-based education while fostering stronger connections between post-secondary music programs and their communities. We provide accessible, high-quality music programs for youth from low-income backgrounds, individuals in correctional facilities, and those in recovery or reintegrating into society. By harnessing the power of music, we inspire personal growth, build resilience, and create pathways to a brighter future.
At OpporTUNEity, we believe music can break barriers, build bridges, and transform lives. Whether you’re an educator, artist, student, or community member — there’s a place for you in our movement. Join our team of teaching artists, partner with us, or donate today and help us create meaningful opportunities through music.
Youth After School Programs
Our after-school programs give Worcester elementary students weekly music education, mentorship, and a creative community. Every site includes Creative Expressions, a class led by a board-certified music therapist, along with group instruction on a musical instrument. Students write, perform, and, beginning this fall, record their own work using our mobile production studio.
We run our after-school program at the Joy of Music Program with students from Lincoln Street School, and we are opening a second site this fall at Norrback Avenue Elementary. There is no cost for participation.
We track academic, behavioral, and musical growth, and attendance is part of that picture: students attend our program on the days they attend school. College students from our university partners work alongside our teaching artists as interns and work-study staff, which strengthens the program and gives the next generation of educators real experience in the classroom.
Jail Program
We have taught music inside the Worcester County House of Correction since 2018, in partnership with the Worcester County Sheriff's Office, and have worked with more than 150 people there.
Classes run weekly and include songwriting, beat making, and music production. Participants write original material, produce their own tracks, and build on work started by students in earlier sessions. Each session ends with a concert for family, friends, and facility staff. This fall we add a hip hop course, which will include opportunities for participants to meet with established artists.
What happens inside does not end at release. Participants who come home to Worcester are welcome in our Songwriters Circle, which meets year-round at three community sites and is led by the same teaching artists they already know. That continuity is the point: the relationship carries across the hardest transition a person makes.
Songwriters Circle
The Songwriters Circle began as a way to stay connected with people after release. Someone who found something in our programs inside the House of Correction should not lose it the week they come home.
The Circle meets weekly, year-round, at three sites: Everyday Miracles Peer Recovery Center, Community Compass at Open Sky, and the Community Justice and Support Center. Sessions are led by the same teaching artists who teach inside, so participants arrive already knowing someone in the room. Anyone in reentry or recovery is welcome, whether or not they came through our jail programming. There is no cost for participation.
Participants collaborate on songwriting, record original music, and share their work at community showcases. Some of it is released through OpporTUNEity Records. We serve 30 to 40 people each year.
Weekly sessions provide structure, creative work, and a group of people who show up for each other. That is our approach to reentry support: not a referral to a stranger, but a relationship that already exists.
OpporTUNEity Records
OpporTUNEity Records is our nonprofit record label. We release music written by participants in our programs, both inside the Worcester County House of Correction and in our community programs, produced and recorded in collaboration with our teaching artists.
The terms are different from the industry standard. Writers keep their songs. Nothing is signed away and nothing is exclusive, and writers remain free to record and use their own work however they choose. When a release earns significant revenue, a defined percentage goes to its co-writers, and the label's share funds free programming. Over time, we intend for the label to help sustain our community work.
Our catalog has grown faster than our capacity to release it. Our goal for the coming year is to put out new music every month.
Streaming on all major platforms: hyperfollow.com/opportuneity