Today we’d like to introduce you to Matrisha Armitage.
Hi Matrisha, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I have always felt like I was born with a guiding light and voice inside of me that constantly reminded me that I was meant to do important work in this world. This voice supported me through childhood traumas that included being raised in a family that did not look or think like me. When you are young, you don’t understand what sexism and prejudice look like, you just know that it doesn’t feel good when adults make comments about the color of your skin and physical attributes. As I grew older, I started sticking up for myself and realized that I needed to find a new community that understood my feelings and treated me with more respect.
My Mom did the best she could, but also was raised in a broken home filled with addiction and abuse that impacted her view of the world. My Grandparents were a saving grace and took me in when my parents were at their worst and struggling with addiction and homelessness. I was fortunate to never have to live on the streets, due to friends and family that would take us in, but had the kind of childhood that will make a great novel when I have time to write it.
Throughout elementary school I was a great student and made good choices until we lost our rental home, at which point I started skipping school and getting into more trouble. My Grandmother saved the day and helped me complete 8th grade so I would not be held back, which was a huge blessing. Even though I lived in some dangerous environments with very little supervision, that inner voice stopped me from making any major life altering mistakes. This deep internal faith in myself and my desire for a better life is something that I am eternally grateful for and made it possible for me to become the person that I am today.
The saying, “it’s always darkest before the dawn” applied to my teen years. When my family was truly at their lowest point, we received a letter from my biological father’s wife, asking to connect with us and attempt to start a relationship. Naturally hesitant due to the condition our lives were in, we decided to reach out and meet up in my hometown of Albany, OR. We joked that there were no blood tests necessary because the resemblance was so strong.
I joined my father and his wife that summer on the road as clothing vendors at music festivals and events throughout Oregon and Washington and was introduced to an entrepreneurial lifestyle. The first time I held ten thousand dollars cash in my hand after a Bumbershoot festival, I was inspired to create my own future combining my desire for a formal education with independence, and small business ownership. This new family was filled with business owners, real estate professionals, and musicians who lived life in a way that I had never witnessed. I immediately began building the skills I needed to follow this path.
My Mom and I moved into a rental across the street from my father’s house when I was fourteen so she could begin her recovery journey while I developed a relationship with my new found family. This move to Eugene was the beginning of my story and where I was able to take control of my future and start planting the seeds that made everything I have accomplished possible.
Once my Mom and I were stable, I wanted to start giving back to youth who were in similar situations, so I began volunteering at The First Place Family Center, a shelter next to our high school, in the child care center. It made me feel good to talk and play with kids that knew I understood what they were going through, helping them feel that things could change and to never give up hope.
I met my soulmate, bandmate, business, and life partner at South Eugene High School and we knew that we were meant to be together forever. One of my early life goals was to have a supportive and loving relationship after watching so much of my family go through divorce and abuse. This goal kept me from engaging in physical relationships at an early age. I was saving my love for a special person and I knew that person was Austin from our first kiss in 1996 at the bus stop in front of our school.
Austin was also a musician and when we met we both played guitar and I loved singing, so I joined him for jams at his friend’s house where I was encouraged to try the drums and quickly learned that I was a natural. This was the start of our musical partnership and our commitment to making music a priority in our lives.
Austin was also from a broken home with generational addiction issues, so throughout our relationship we had to unlearn the patterns we were shown and help each other become the partners we wanted to be. This took hard work, dedication, and focused effort. We succeeded in our dream and in October of 2026 celebrated the 30th anniversary of our first kiss and the 23rd anniversary of owning our home. We are very proud of ourselves for doing the work necessary to create a wonderful life together. We have shared so many experiences and grew closer with each failure and success. We currently manage a successful bookkeeping business, purchased and sold rental properties that we decided not to keep, work together for MEPAA to serve our community, and continue to create and write music in our home studio. We have released four albums of original music, we are happier than ever and grateful for every blessing along the way.
I found a mentor at South Eugene High School in the finance department, Leone McGuire, who accepted my internship application even though my grades and attendance were not very good my Freshman year. I met with her and explained my home situation and that I was ready to get back on track. She believed in me and gave me the opportunity and skills I needed to start my first business.
I became a founding member of a student-run marketing and promotional business called 19th Ave Promotions that managed the school theater and box office. This role combined my financial internship knowledge with event and venue management, promotional skills, and nonprofit fiscal bookkeeping. I supported the business through a successful financial audit from the district after being mismanaged by an adult consultant. This experience was so valuable and contributed to my future endeavors in the arts and nonprofit management sector.
By graduation in 1999 I had started my own bookkeeping firm with my father and his wife as one of my first clients, managing their rentals and clothing business, then branched into taking on several small business owners throughout Eugene. I was running this business when I enrolled at Lane Community College earning an Associates Degree in Business Management and an Associates of Arts Oregon Transfer degree. I would wake up early to a bookkeeping job with an international importing company, go to school, then run my business after school. It was hard to keep up, but I knew it would pay off and diligently maintained this double full time schedule required to meet my goals. This level of commitment and hard work is still my norm and I am grateful to have the good health and energy it takes to serve my community.
My first large nonprofit client was L.E.A.D. (Leadership, Education, Adventure, Direction). They supported unhoused and underserved youth with food security, job skills, adventure courses, and mentorship. In this position I expanded my skills to grant and programmatic fiscal management. I learned about the legal structure of nonprofit boards and requirements to work with youth as a direct service provider, which I volunteered for between office shifts. They managed a teen center downtown that the youth advocated for from the City of Eugene, rent free, to meet their growing needs. This position provided me with the skills and experience I needed to continue on my path to founding the nonprofit that I knew was in my future.
In 2007 Austin and I joined a music festival called GRRRLZ ROCK and had a blast representing female musicians in our local community. I was so inspired that I started to run events, procure funding and sponsorships, and learned more about sound engineering and musical equipment. By 2010 I purchased the rights to the festival from the founder and changed the direction to support more youth participation in the local music and arts community.
This was the same year that Austin joined me full time in our bookkeeping business so we could have the flexibility to pursue our musical and community interests. We founded a corporation to manage all of our projects and he became a foundational factor in the success of our business as we grew to supporting 85+ small business clients throughout Lane County.
I started performing at an early age and observed how dangerous and unsupportive the music industry was for youth and women. My newly found father also made musical time with family very stressful and negative. These experiences fueled me to follow the words of Angela Davis and “change the things I could not accept”. I branded the GRRRLZ ROCK Music & Arts Festival logo in her image as my inspiration and decided to commit my energy and resources to creating safe spaces for women and youth to share their artistic talents and skills.
In 2014 I was asked to host an educational music workshop that led to a five year partnership with Ophelia’s Place and changed my life forever. The workshop participants were 9-14 year old girls with their Mom’s who had no musical experience. The “Rock Orchestra” group learning format that I developed was presented for the first time that day and was a huge success. The workshop hosts and several parents were filled with tears of joy and shared how meaningful it was seeing their daughters playing instruments, brimming with confidence and pride. That was the moment I knew I wanted to add accessible music education for youth to my path. The event coordinators were so excited about the impact this workshop had that they invited our team to run a music program in their therapeutic facility, offering weekly workshops. We accepted this invitation and moved our gear into the building the following month. Students and parents who attended this first workshop are still team members, board members, and staff members who have helped develop all of our programs and community culture.
Ophelia’s Place provided the training and support I needed to move forward in this direction. With my lived experience and the financial support of our bookkeeping business, I was ready to invest the time and energy needed to make this next dream a reality and in 2015 the Music Education & Performing Artists Association was born, serving youth and underrepresented artists throughout Lane County.
We moved out of Ophelia’s Place in 2019 to be more inclusive, expanding our programs to serve all ages, genders, and abilities. We rented space in a local theater and began learning all the steps required to manage our own facility and run our programs more independently. There were many procedures and management tools needed to operate outside of the supported larger space. This was a huge learning curve and then the pandemic shut it all down in 2020. At this time I experienced a surge of personal musical growth and learned how to offer individual music lessons remotely for students on several instruments across states and even one international student in Egypt. I learned how to use OBS production software to host engaging virtual events, nationwide interviews with inspiring musicians and youth artists, and ensure our students were not left isolated during this challenging time. MEPAA provided thousands of dollars in brand new instruments to our students so they could participate in group online courses, and collaborated with radio stations and other nonprofits to keep our performance programs alive. When several nonprofits were shuttered, our community came together and thrived the best we could, increasing programming to stay engaged with our served population. We captured great feedback and testimonials from our core students and were given the motivation to continue our work despite any challenge.
In 2021 an opportunity that required a huge leap of faith was offered to us, our very first fully rented facility in a wonderful neighborhood with space to grow. At the time we had very little funds in the bank and one guaranteed donation to support six months of rent while we upgraded the building. We had ten days to answer and after some heavy soul searching and several board meetings, our team decided to go for it and this is the part of my story that brings it all together and still brings tears of pride and accomplishment to my eyes.
For the next six months, Austin dove into making all of the necessary repairs while a team of volunteers helped us prepare and review employment documents, rental agreements, facility safety guidelines, training courses and all of the back office work that was required to transition to this new level of responsibility. We had a strong board and team of administrative professionals helping create manuals and procedures. Then we were ready to start hiring staff and instructors.
When we first opened, we hired local music teachers and educational professionals, but quickly realized that the values and culture that MEPAA had created was not easy to reproduce on a larger scale. So I reached out to the youth who were active participants in our programs at Ophelia’s Place and performers that I knew were amazing musicians and asked them to join us in this mission to create a safe and creative space that gave youth and families the same benefits they experienced growing up in these programs. These young artists were already program volunteers and helped develop our strong youth-led programming. They were all excited to give back to the community and provide more youth with the level of empowerment that helped them to thrive as young performers and artists. This was the final ingredient that the MEPAA Music & Arts Center needed to succeed as a larger organization and serve more students and families.
Each team member brings unique skills, lived experience and passion to their roles in the organization. We all work together to meet our own personal artistic and professional needs, making sure everyone is afforded flexibility to adapt their positions as needed, work with the populations they enjoy most, and support each other to continue learning, growing and taking care of ourselves.
Our Vice President also teaches in our facility and helps us maintain a safe and professional space where everyone feels welcome and pitches in anytime we need him. We are the best team and collectively have worked together in the community for over a decade.
This first year in the new building included hybrid remote and in person lessons with families and students still struggling with isolation and not ready to be in group spaces or perform at larger community events. With patience and compassion, we continued to support our students and slowly returned to the pre-pandemic level of events and performance festivals we hosted for so many years.
During this time, we received feedback that our programs were most beneficial to underrepresented youth and that the way we approached music education was accessible and inclusive in ways we never imagined and that is when the Music For All program seeds were sewn. We started hosting group music classes for agencies who supported the disabilities community and our next successful program began to thrive. This program offers high and low sensory options and has become an important part in the lives of so many people who would otherwise not be included in professional music spaces, using high quality gear and being instructed in ways that are uplifting, joyful, and adaptable to any learner.
For my personal journey, this program has brought me more rewards and joy than I ever knew possible. Working with teens has always been my passion, but supporting a community of people who are not given equal access gives me a sense of pride and working with students who are present in each moment, filled with the joy of music and expression is one of the most beautiful things you can experience. I am often overwhelmed with emotion when I sit and take stock of everything our programs have done for the community.
These programs also provided a healing opportunity for me and my Mom. After successfully beating her drug addictions, she suffered from several abusive relationships that continued to negatively impact my life while I was trying to achieve my goals. After the last one put her in the hospital, she chose to stop putting herself in these situations and focus on making up for lost time by becoming someone that I could count on. She started volunteering at events and supported the development of the facility. She is now a regular face and part of the joyful energy that this space offers people. I learned to understand and appreciate the youthful energy that I inherited from her and began letting go of the hurt and pain of my childhood. She has acknowledged and helped me process my feelings and never denies her role in the past. She understands that trauma is a lifelong journey and has made clear to me that she will be there for me anytime I need to address it. She works hard to be the best Mom she can be and is in therapy to heal her own childhood wounds. We often share how these programs saved our relationship and brought us back together. I am so grateful to have her on my side whenever I need her and everyone appreciates the support she offers our team.
My relationship with my father did not work out for the long run after a nasty divorce and custody battle that I supported his wife through, but I have two siblings that mean the world to me. They also overcame childhood trauma and poverty and accomplished their goals. They are both happy and successful in ways that none of our parents were able to maintain and excelled beyond any expectations. Being the eldest sibling by many years, I often feel like a back up parent and they know they can count on me to be there for them.
I am now 45 and fully aware that the next chapter of my story will include finding ways to take better care of myself, which is a common struggle for those who thrive to serve others. My double full time schedule has become unsustainable and I have started working on this new goal by reducing the number of bookkeeping clients we serve, learning to trust others to continue the great work our core team has created, trying to be kinder to myself and not stress over every little thing, and making sure to be grateful for all of the people that have made it possible.
Thank you for asking me to share my story, it is not something that I have much experience doing as I prefer to focus on the stories of the people we serve. This has been a very educational and valuable journey and I hope it inspires others to follow their dreams no matter what challenges and obstacles they may face along the way.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest challenge for me throughout my journey was to remain patient with those around me and understand that not everyone is driven to the level that I was. I had to be compassionate as my family and partner worked hard to achieve the expectations I placed on them. I did not want to lose relationships due to my constant need to be productive and re-assess my seemingly never ending passions and goals. I used to have a hard time sitting through a movie and could not truly relax because I knew the clock was ticking and I had so much I wanted to achieve and this was harming the depth of connection I needed to maintain in my life.
Teaching myself that everyone has varied capacity and that the levels at which I choose to work is my choice and that I cannot blame others when I am exhausted or burned out or compare my determination to others. Once I figured this out, things got much better in my life and people found me much more approachable and accepting, which was necessary to lead a team rather than push a team. My team and my husband have helped me work to overcome this obstacle in so many ways so we can enjoy and appreciate the things we have created, rather than looking for the next mountain to climb. I want to stand on top of the mountain with my team, filled with gratitude and continue doing what we do the best. Deeper, not wider is our mantra for this lesson and we want to be sure we do not take on so much that the quality of our work is diluted.
I also want to honor the fact that so many people have made this dream possible and find more ways to spend time with them in more relaxing ways and make space for learning about their goals and dreams and try not to dominate every situation with my big energy.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My partner and I write songs and create music together while supporting an organization that gives back to so many in our community. We run a small bookkeeping business and have a lovely home that we enjoy maintaining as a peaceful space to exist when not working to accomplish our goals.
Armitage Solutions – Bookkeeping & Consulting
Ausha, Inc – Umbrella Corporation
Stereo Minds aka Bajuana Tea – Music Production & Performance Group
MEPAA – Music Education & Performing Artists Association – 501(c)(3)
Music Education & Performing Artists Association (MEPAA) provides access to music and arts education by removing barriers and identifying resources needed for inclusion, exploration, and success for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities.
Programs include: GRRRLZ ROCK, KIDZ ROCK, MuseArt, Music For All
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I like making music, chilling with my man, and supporting my community. I dislike people who are mean to others.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mepaa.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mepaaofficial/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mepaaorg
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/matrishaarmitage/
