Meet Your Neighbor

Kari Engleson

April 22, 2007

Executive Director
Prairie Music Academy

When Kari Engleson and her original business partner started Prairie Music Academy in 1999, the school operated under a traditional for-profit structure.

Eight years later, and now running the operation solo, Engleson is taking a new business approach, having converted the academy to non-profit status.

Sun Prairie Today recently sat down with her to learn more about this change and what it means for the community.

For-profits and non-profits get viewed differently by the public. We don't want to be perceived as we're in this for ourselves. We are a community music school. Ninety-five percent of the schools like ours are non-profit.

Realistically, to be able to reach a broader scope of students -- low income, students at risk -- you need funding. There's a certain group of people that can't afford us. And as a for-profit, we can't do anything about that. As a for-profit, we can't get grants, we can't do fundraising to reach out to those families -- and we want to be able to reach out to those families. We need to be able to serve everybody, not just the ones that can afford that price.

We were just bursting at the seams. We had people sitting on the floor. We had to go other places for recitals. We just never would have gotten to do the kinds of things that we do now.

Incredibly positive. Just aesthetically, it's such a better place. We get more interest just for being here. There's a lot a fascination with this whole development right now. There's a lot of energy with it. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Cannery Bar and Grill opens.

Oh, yes. I went to a school like this when I was in high school. I had a teacher who was a huge influence on me. She was the most passionate teacher ... probably the first teacher I had who just taught because she loved to teach. She had started a school and I thought, wow, that's really cool.

We want to be reaching out to a broader base of students. I'd like to see more diversity in the school. I'd like to see us reaching those kids who aren't getting music. We're very fortunate in Sun Prairie that we have a great music program in the school district. A lot of places don't have that. So at least the kids are getting it there in school. But those teachers don't have as much time to devote to private lessons.

We just need to keep coming up with innovative programs that are good for the kids in the community. Right now we're developing, in a very broad sense, a string program that would reach out into the community and hopefully target the groups that I spoke of ... and put an instrument in their hands and get them lessons.

We have piano, voice, all the string instruments. We have our early childhood program for birth to seven. And we've also been taking that early childhood program and working in the daycares and the school district, working with pre-K kids.

This event is April 28 at 7:30 p.m. It is an adult concert ... a fundraiser. We have a UW piano professor donating her services. She is a former professor of mine from Lawrence University. Two other Prairie Music Academy instructors (also Lawrence graduates) will be playing as well. There will be a recital. There's a reception that's being catered.

We want people to come in and see what we're doing. At the intermission we'll be talking a little about our vision ... some of the programs we're trying to develop ... how we want to get into the community, and where we want to go from here. If people are going to give to us they need to know what we're trying to do.

A colleague of (husband and Sun Prairie native) Mike is a fabric artist. We were talking one evening and she explained how music played an important part in her childhood. She felt very strongly about what we were trying to accomplish at PMA and she designed and donated a handmade quilt to be displayed in our lobby.

Through the quilt, she incorporated our treble clef logo and tried to capture the essence of our school. It's beautiful. The quilt is worth $2,000 and we are unveiling it at the concert. We are hoping to raise an equal or greater amount that will help us develop our new programs.