Special-education teacher Kevin Travers started DWA a decade ago when he was looking for a positive way for his sometimes-bullied special-ed charges to express themselves and be heard.
In 2000, Travers - a native of Northeast Philadelphia and a drummer since he was 8 - remembered how drumming had helped him focus during a turbulent childhood.
His idea that banging on buckets could do the same for his students has succeeded beyond his expectations. Now he has high school football stars and students from the gifted program joining the drum circle as well.
"It's a family away from home," Travers, 42, said. "This is a place students can come, and that includes everybody. That's what I'm most proud of. There are popular kids along with kids that are not connected to the popular crowd. Being a part of this group they can feel included."
If this reminds you a bit of Glee, with buckets instead of singing and dancing, then you've got the right groove.
Candy remembered that in high school, he couldn't stay away, even when some of his friends on the football team put the music makers down.
"At the time they thought it was corny and used to laugh," he said, "but once it was growing and getting bigger, the athletes started coming out and performing."
More than two years after his graduation, Candy turned up at a Drummers With Attitude practice this month with 20-year-old alum Jonathon Square, who chimed in, "You can be yourself here."
The success of Drummers With Attitude has made the outfit - with as many as 100 kids involved - into a band of roving ambassadors for the diverse blue-collar suburb. It performs up to 35 times a year across the region at major sporting events, such as Flyers and Sixers games, and elsewhere with the implied message that teens can find a legal brand of high by simply making the right sound with a plastic container and a stick.
