Nonprofit drums up interest in donating, fixing instruments for SoCal schools in need
As a kid growing up in Michigan, Tom Stewart always had easy access to a set of drums.
His father, Carl, had learned to play the skins at age 6 — when the Big Band style of music that would come to define a generation was still finding its rhythm — and had formed his own band by the sixth grade.
Though drumming was never Carl’s profession, it had been a deep-seated passion, and he played through high school, college, his service in World War II and decades later at countless community theater productions and musicals.
“If there was a gig to be done, my dad would jump in,” said Stewart, who himself began playing the snare in the fourth grade. “It was a pretty cool education. Everything I know about jazz, I learned from my father.”
During his training Stewart came to understand how hard it was for would-be percussionists to develop their talents without access to full drum sets, which can be very costly.
But it wasn’t until after his father’s passing in 2013 that Stewart, then living in Huntington Beach, would find a calling in providing underserved school music programs with donated and refurbished drum sets.
“My nephew was teaching at Silver Valley High School out near Barstow and asked if he could have one of his grandpa’s drum sets. There was a drummer playing his heart out, and he was pretty good, but every drum was cracked, and the cymbals were broken,” he recalled.
“I thought if that kid could get a drum set, what could he do? Where could he go?”
Reluctant to part with his father’s instruments, Stewart looked on Craigslist for a set for sale and convinced the seller to donate it instead. Without missing a beat, he had it fixed up and delivered.
Today, his nonprofit, Carl Stewart’s Drums for Drummers, has delivered more than 150 such sets to schools throughout Southern California.
Alongside wife Kimberly Harding-Stewart and a handful of volunteers, Stewart looks for used sets and parts and people who can put the two together. Thanks to a partnership with Remo Drumheads, the nonprofit puts new heads on each set.
Now, Drums for Drummers is looking for schools who could use the instruments.
“A lot of teachers just think you’re giving away somebody’s trash,” Stewart said. “These things are almost like brand new.”
On Saturday, the nonprofit invited 20 teachers from throughout Southern California to a warehouse in Santa Ana, where they were invited to take a free refurbished set for their school’s music program.
Teachers came from throughout Orange County — including Anaheim, San Juan Capistrano and Garden Grove — as well as locations in Los Angeles and San Diego counties to pick up the donated goods.
“Tom had them set up in the parking lot. They had every piece and part the teachers said they needed,” said Harding-Stewart. “The teachers would come in, find their drum sets and play them if they could.”
Among the grateful recipients was Bladimir Castro, a music teacher at Los Angeles’ Virgil Middle School who had been looking to incorporate a drum into his classical, rock and jazz teachings and was saving up to $800 for a set.
“For the price of a drum set, I can get two or three flutes and impact more kids with those instruments,” said Castro, who simply placed a call and was invited to Saturday’s pick-up session.
“The hope is eventually with this drum set I want to train kids here and create a pipeline to the high schools. I can train jazz drummers here, so they can have a foundation and continue in their learning.”
If there’s anyone who knows firsthand how important access to drums is for a percussionist’s ambitions, it’s 16-year-old Redondo Beach drummer Joseph Mintz, a now-regular donor to Drums for Drummers.
Like Stewart’s father, Mintz began playing in earnest at age 6 and never looked back. He was 11 and already on set number two when he learned about the organization at an annual drum show.
“I thought we should definitely donate my old drum set here,” he recalled Monday. “It’s so much better to give it to someone we know is going to give it to a better home.”
A player in the Redondo Union High school orchestra and jazz bands, who recently recorded his own album, Mintz has already donated two sets and plans to continue.
“It’s absolutely vital to future musicians and the future of music that we get proper instruments in schools,” he said. “When drummers find themselves getting a new set and they don’t have to keep their old one, they should definitely donate it.”
Stewart’s hope is perhaps one day Drums for Drummers will be able to offer on-site lessons or expand its reach to more schools so every drum student will have the same opportunity he had.
“There are a lot of drumline kids who don’t get a chance to get on a drum set,” he said. “Those are the kids I want to get to.”
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