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Making Free Music In Camarillo, Calif.

Horn players in the Camarillo Community Band.
Courtesy of the Camarillo Community Band.
Horn players in the Camarillo Community Band.

This month we are collecting your stories about the good things Americans are doing to make their community a better place. Some of your contributions will become blog posts and the project will end with a story that weaves together submissions to make a story of Americans by Americans for Americans.

Free music is salve for the soul. And the Camarillo Community Band — a group of some 60 volunteer musicians who play marches, jazz and show tunes — has been giving free concerts for 27 years.

Adults who play band instruments can simply join the group; high school students must audition.

Band Manager Dan Rhymes and his wife, Linda, are music educators and charter members.

"When Kirk Raymond founded the band, we weren't thinking 25 years ahead," Rhymes says. "We were just happy to have a place to play."

Things look different today, he says: "We now have a tradition worth preserving."

Mark F. Fischer teaches theology at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo and plays trumpet in the band. He listens to KCLU.

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Mark F. Fischer