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Drums not buckets: Muskegon Heights drumline marches to new beat

The Muskegon Heights drumline was surprised Thursday with all new drums.

Slowly the beat is returning to music programs at the Public School Academy in Muskegon Heights.

A state emergency manager once ran the district, leading to the demise of band programs, but now the emergency manager is gone, and Muskegon Heights students are picking up the instruments.

"We have been practicing for the last couple of days, " Vanessa Marble, Martin Luther King Elementary Principal says.

But the school lacked the drums to beat on. So the school's drumline just used what they could find. Buckets, and one drum for students to share.

Marble says her students didn't let the lack of equipment hold them back.

"They are doing it, it just shows the talent we have here, " Marble says.

Because they had desire to rebuild the drumline, the same drumline this school district was once know for students were in for a surprise Thursday. New drums and new flags for the color guard all paid for with community grant money.

"Energy, passion-- it is going to ignite that fire within them," says Marble.

A fire inside for not only music but school too.

M.L.K. Elementary just added a choir class, and hopes to soon have a new playground.

Superintendent Rane Garcia says the drums are the start of rebuilding band classes.

"We are looking for more donations, more sponsors, we want to build this," Garcia says. Later this month this drumline will play at a community celebration.

WZZM 13 and the TEGNA foundation joined together with the Bruce P. Rissi Glioblastoma fund at the Muskegon community foundation.

The donations from both foundations means the school can use those old buckets for something else.

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