Adair Whetstone teaches ballet in the lobby of the church at the Metropolitan Youth Orchestras of Central Alabama and Scrollworks Youth Music School housed at St. Paul United Methodist Church. (Bernard Troncale/Alabama NewsCenter)

A brown side door on a parking lot at St. Paul United Methodist Church with a small sign that reads “Scrollworks” hardly announces what’s happening inside. As soon as the door to the historic church in the heart of Birmingham’s Civil Rights District opens on a Monday evening, music from all sorts of instruments can be heard, filling every space available with symphonic sounds not usually heard in a house of worship.

Trombone scales from the horn of Peter Frederickson. Violin notes on the fingers of Mercedes Torres. Percussion beats thundering with William and Braxton Gann. And a haunting tune from the cello of Alexandria Reasor. It’s not Sunday worship music, but music from the Scrollworks Youth Music School of the Metropolitan Youth Orchestras of Central Alabama.

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When CEO Jeane Goforth started the program in February 2008, her original concept was to make lessons available to anyone who showed up. “We decided to focus on kids ages 6-18. It’s been thousands of kids. We do about 300 kids a year and probably have 150 kids that are consistent throughout the semester.”

The nonprofit organization accepts students whose family income is below Alabama’s median income, which is among the lowest in the country. The students are a diverse group. African-American students make up 50 percent of the enrollment, while 35 percent of the students are white, 7 percent are Asian, and the rest are Hispanic and others.

Parents pay a small registration fee and grants and donations help cover operating expenses. Scrollworks also has a contract with The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to provide supplemental instruction for students with disabilities.

Instructors are music education majors from area colleges and universities. Some are professional musicians. A few are symphony musicians, and some have been teaching music for most of their lives.

Instructor Sara Tucker brings a personal understanding to some of the challenges low-income families have at acquiring music lessons for their children: “The only instrument my family had was an old flute that was about 100 years old,” Tucker said. “We couldn’t afford to get it fixed,” but it worked well enough to take band.

Tucker teaches piano, woodwind, some brass, and an orchestra class in addition to an audition prep class for students who want to attend the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

Bob Crosby is another instructor who retired after a career with the railroads and went back to school to become a registered nurse. He teaches violin, trumpet and piano and still takes violin lessons from Cindy Orcutt, another Scrollworks faculty member.

Bessemer City Middle School student Alexandria Reasor plays the cello. “I think Scrollworks is a great opportunity for kids of all ages that want to do something that’s outside the box. … I think my teachers are pretty cool.”

She said they teach kids how to taste your dreams. “My parents think I play pretty good even though neither one of them plays music.”

Elizabeth Torres has been bringing her daughter Mercedes to Scrollworks for violin lessons for about a year.

“She has progressed really far, “Torres said. “When we came here she had only had a couple of private lessons and now they say she will be ready for orchestra by next fall.” Torres said she is excited about enrolling another child there for violin lessons.

The high cost of owning a musical instrument can be a deterrent to some families. As kids grow, so does the size of the instrument they play. To help with these expenses, students pay $25 and are able to use any of the mostly donated instruments Scrollworks has as long as they stay enrolled.

St. Paul United Methodist, the church where civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery was once the pastor, donates space to Scrollworks and every inch is used. Lowery’s great grandchildren attend Scrollworks. On a recent night, ballet was taught in the narthex of the church, a musical was rehearsed in the main sanctuary and hallways and offices were all being used as classrooms.

“I feel good,” Goforth said. “I feel like we’re really making an impact, we’re getting somewhere.”