Picture a little girl standing on the old wooden stage of Whirled Pies, a pizza shop in Eugene, Oregon. It’s an evening in 2010 and the opening beats of “Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics start playing. The music,  the people and the environment are pulsating, but Emily Sangder is too elated to even sing. “I remember being like, this is the coolest thing ever,” Sangder, who was 11 at the time, said.  “I want to do this for a long time.”

Today, Sangder is a confident musician who performs with round glasses perched atop her nose, a sweet disposition and calming aura. Her music is a melange of Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift, with a dash of indie-folk. Sangder, 23, has outgrown pizzerias and is navigating her way through the music industry by performing at local coffee shops and wine bars, or wherever her soothing voice and acoustic guitar jams take her.

“I want to make people feel the way that I feel when I hear a piece of music that changes my life for the first time. When I hear a lyric that hits so hard that I literally start to cry,” Sangder said. “That’s the feeling that I crave to give to others through my songwriting.”

It was through a program called GRRRLZ ROCK that first allowed Sangder — not to mention dozens of Eugene area women, young and older alike — to satisfy her own musical craving. GRRRLZ ROCK started in 2006 as a music festival that featured female artists and performers, giving women the spotlight to jam. While the groups could include men, it was mandatory that all performances featured women as well. Fueled by gender inequality in the music industry, the festival allowed women to channel their musical talents. From there, the festival sprouted into a year-round affair, thanks to Matrisha Armitage. Seeing the festival’s potential to grow into something bigger, Armitage developed what is now a multi-faceted music and performing arts nonprofit organization for people of all ages, abilities, gender orientations and backgrounds to learn music.

The organization is called Music Education and Performing Arts Association (MEPAA), and according to Armitage, it is an amalgamation of love, community and rock ‘n’ roll. MEPAA, launched in 2015, hosts music lessons, group classes and events for people of all musical backgrounds to come together and learn in a supportive environment.

Whether MEPAA is hosting classes, putting on festivals or building Eugene’s music community, it all comes back to Armitage.

“The world of being an adult and a gigging musician, especially a female musician, is not the most satisfying,” said Armitage, 41, who started performing in high school. Her rock ‘n’ roll dreams didn’t hit the main stage, but her journey with MEPAA and as a music teacher allows her musical spirit to flourish.

“You have to throw your weight around a lot and always be in that place of ‘I’m the boss,’” she said. As she looks around her office in the MEPAA headquarters, she takes a deep breath and smiles. “I’m the boss for these kids and for these other women. Standing behind them and their craft is so much different from having yourself up there. Different in the best way possible.”

When you walk into the MEPAA’s new headquarters, it’s likely you’ll be greeted by Phoenix Burns, the MEPAA administrative assistant. Burns played bass in a band formed through GRRRLZ ROCK. Since departing the band, Burns has channeled their passion for music into working for MEPAA.

Burns wants to give back to the same MEPAA community that offered them a safe space, especially while they navigated coming out as nonbinary. “I was always around music,” Burns said. “Family gatherings were like...everyone plays music.”

Whenever Burns went to rehearsal, they always felt comforted by the MEPAA crew. “I never felt like my coming out process was something I would be judged for,” Burns said. “GRRRLZ ROCK ironically was the place where that didn’t matter to me.”

MEPAA offers a welcoming environment for all ages to learn music and promotes that it is never too late to pick up an instrument. Ramune Nagisetty knows that all too well. In 2009, Nagisetty hosted a foreign exchange student at her family home in Portland. After watching the student play the Pink Floyd and Van Halen songs of her youth in her living room, Nagisetty felt inspired to try music for herself. Nagisetty, 40 at the time, picked up the guitar for the first time with Armitage and has been playing ever since. Her day job is as a senior principal engineer at Intel, and she spends her evenings shredding on stage with her bands Avalanche Lily and Rocket 3. Nagisetty also does solo work and runs her own music blog.

Getting the ball rolling as a gigging musician in Portland is no easy task, and an even harder one when you’re over 40, Nagisetty said. After meeting Armitage and getting integrated with the GRRRLZ ROCK program, Nagisetty said her new hobby quickly became a defining factor in her adult life.

“My very first gig ever was through Matrisha. She created a safe space for me and so many other women to go stick our necks out and see how uncomfortable we could be while still feeling good about playing,” Nagisetty said.

Working as an engineer and running a rock band sound like two different ends of the spectrum, but Nagisetty said that being a woman in both fields takes a certain type of ambition and drive.

“I’m glad that I have all these different dimensions to my life,” she said. “I feel like women in engineering are very creative people in a different way than their male counterparts. They have to be rebellious and push boundaries because they are a minority, they have to want to challenge the status quo. It’s the same thing with music. If you want to be up there you have to want to be up there.”

Some of the girls and women who have started with GRRRLZ ROCK and MEPAA share a desire to perform. Just consider what Sangder and Nagisetty continue to do. But the program does more than create rockers. It creates memories. And for Armitage, a good memory is like a hit tune — very satisfying.

“When I started teaching other people and working with youth it was just so satisfying,” Armitage said. “There’s nothing like seeing someone shine on stage or in rehearsals and knowing that you had a part in that journey.”