Having survived domestic violence and a year of homelessness with two kids while in her 20s, Margaret Martin knows what poverty looks like. One day in 1997, she observed young gang members marveling at her 5-year-old son playing the violin in a farmers’ market. The moment inspired her to launch Harmony Project — a sustained music-learning program empowering at-risk youth in L.A.’s most gang-afflicted neighborhoods — in 2001. There, Martin put into practice what she learned at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. In areas where high school dropout rates exceed 50 percent, Harmony Project’s entire Los Angeles class of 2016 graduated with 98 percent of those seniors accepted to two or four-year colleges. More than 5,000 music students across several states are now enrolled in Harmony Project of America. The program’s mentoring-through-music approach makes fiscal sense, too. With the $40,000 it takes to arraign and incarcerate one juvenile in this country, Martin says, “you could give private lessons to 40 kids for a year. Do the math.”