Hi,
I've been following this story a little.
I find it touching that the adminstrator of the facility applied to send his troubled teenagers to the parade as drummers even though at the time the facility had poor equipment (not enough drum sticks, no uniforms, kids who came and went into the program and were not actually any good at drumming).
Since they got accepted into the parade, they have been practicing marching and playing and learning to carry the heavy drums.
I will be looking for them when I am watching the parade on Tuesday.
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Troubled Boys Step Up to Inaugural Challenge
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/ny...18Rbandli.html
Quote:
It’s an unbelievable, unlikely, undreamed-of honor for a boy like him and the 15 others who will be marching alongside him.
They are residents of the Bonnie Brae Residential Treatment Center, a rural campus here housing 98 boys ages 8 to 18 who cannot live in the community at large because of what the state calls “psychiatric and behavioral challenges.”
Nearly 80 percent were abused, neglected or abandoned, and failed to adjust to traditional foster care. Fifteen percent do not have homes in the traditional sense and are wards of the state. Some ended up at Bonnie Brae because they got in trouble with the law. They stay an average of 16 months.
Others might not have considered the Bonnie Brae Knights ready for national exposure, but the Presidential Inaugural committee chose them to march in the historic event, and millions of people will be watching.
It’s a Cinderella story, about a ragtag group of kids who loved making noise, but didn’t have a clue about precision or style.
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