As a child rising up in Michigan, Tom Stewart generally experienced quick entry to a established of drums.
His father, Carl, had learned to engage in the skins at age 6 — when the Major Band model of audio that would appear to define a technology was nevertheless obtaining its rhythm — and had shaped his own band by the sixth grade.
Although drumming was by no means Carl’s profession, it had been a deep-seated enthusiasm, and he performed by means of high school, college or university, his support in World War II and a long time later at numerous local community theater productions and musicals.
“If there was a gig to be done, my father would leap in,” mentioned Stewart, who himself began taking part in the snare in the fourth grade. “It was a pretty interesting education. Everything I know about jazz, I acquired from my father.”
For the duration of his training Stewart came to have an understanding of how difficult it was for would-be percussionists to acquire their abilities without having obtain to whole drum sets, which can be quite high-priced.
But it wasn’t right up until immediately after his father’s passing in 2013 that Stewart, then living in Huntington Beach front, would find a calling in furnishing underserved school new music programs with donated and refurbished drum sets.
“My nephew was educating at Silver Valley Significant University out around Barstow and requested if he could have one of his grandpa’s drum sets. There was a drummer taking part in his coronary heart out, and he was very fantastic, but each individual drum was cracked, and the cymbals had been damaged,” he recalled.
“I believed if that kid could get a drum set, what could he do? The place could he go?”
Reluctant to part with his father’s instruments, Stewart appeared on Craigslist for a established for sale and certain the vendor to donate it alternatively. Without the need of missing a conquer, he had it fixed up and delivered.
Today, his nonprofit, Carl Stewart’s Drums for Drummers, has delivered additional than 150 this kind of sets to educational institutions all over Southern California.

Volunteer Mark Lehner, left, presents Tony White, Los Angeles Unified School District audio coordinator, a drum set on Saturday at Drums for Drummers in Santa Ana.
(Kevin Chang / Staff Photographer)
Together with wife Kimberly Harding-Stewart and a handful of volunteers, Stewart seems to be for applied sets and elements and people today who can place the two collectively. Thanks to a partnership with Remo Drumheads, the nonprofit places new heads on just about every established.
Now, Drums for Drummers is wanting for colleges who could use the instruments.
“A whole lot of academics just imagine you’re giving away somebody’s trash,” Stewart explained. “These issues are almost like manufacturer new.”
On Saturday, the nonprofit invited 20 academics from during Southern California to a warehouse in Santa Ana, where by they were being invited to acquire a free refurbished set for their school’s tunes plan.
Lecturers arrived from all through Orange County — together with Anaheim, San Juan Capistrano and Backyard Grove — as properly as places in Los Angeles and San Diego counties to decide up the donated products.

Mariel Teng, left, is served by volunteer Wahid Shorter as he loads his truck with a donated drum set his daughter Marielena, not pictured, picked out at Drums for Drummers in Santa Ana Saturday.
(Kevin Chang / Staff Photographer)
“Tom experienced them established up in the parking large amount. They experienced every piece and component the teachers stated they essential,” claimed Harding-Stewart. “The teachers would come in, obtain their drum sets and engage in them if they could.”
Between the grateful recipients was Bladimir Castro, a songs instructor at Los Angeles’ Virgil Middle School who had been seeking to incorporate a drum into his classical, rock and jazz teachings and was conserving up to $800 for a established.
“For the cost of a drum established, I can get two or 3 flutes and affect more young children with individuals instruments,” mentioned Castro, who merely placed a connect with and was invited to Saturday’s pick-up session.
“The hope is inevitably with this drum established I want to train little ones here and build a pipeline to the substantial educational institutions. I can educate jazz drummers below, so they can have a foundation and continue on in their finding out.”

Volunteer Joseph Mintz, left, plays with a donated drum established as Marielena Teng, centre, Mira Mesa High School choir trainer, and proprietor Tom Stewart, correct, search on.
(Kevin Chang / Employees Photographer)
If there’s any individual who understands firsthand how significant access to drums is for a percussionist’s ambitions, it’s 16-12 months-outdated Redondo Beach front drummer Joseph Mintz, a now-standard donor to Drums for Drummers.
Like Stewart’s father, Mintz began actively playing in earnest at age 6 and never seemed again. He was 11 and previously on established range two when he learned about the organization at an yearly drum demonstrate.
“I considered we really should certainly donate my old drum set below,” he recalled Monday. “It’s so considerably greater to give it to an individual we know is likely to give it to a improved household.”
A participant in the Redondo Union Significant school orchestra and jazz bands, who lately recorded his own album, Mintz has now donated two sets and strategies to continue on.
“It’s totally vital to potential musicians and the foreseeable future of new music that we get proper instruments in educational institutions,” he said. “When drummers come across by themselves getting a new established and they really don’t have to continue to keep their outdated 1, they should absolutely donate it.”
Stewart’s hope is most likely a person working day Drums for Drummers will be ready to offer you on-web site classes or broaden its arrive at to a lot more schools so each individual drum college student will have the identical option he experienced.
“There are a good deal of drumline children who never get a chance to get on a drum established,” he reported. “Those are the young children I want to get to.”
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