Having lost nearly everything, students unite through music on the 'Road to Recovery' after Harvey
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The beat of a drum line pierces the air on a late September afternoon as the marching band of North Forest High School took to a football field, swamped weeks earlier by the torrential rain of Harvey and the overflow of bayous on the northeast side of Houston.
"It can be a healing mechanism or a coping tool...that's one of the magical parts of music," Kenneth Gayle of the non-profit Music Doing Good With Instruments told ABC 13 photojournalist Chris Graczyk.
The healing power of music, it's a lesson many of the students at North Forest have learned.
The band leader said most were displaced for weeks, with many families having lost everything, often staying in shelters, leaving behind all but the essentials.
Now, back on the practice field, bright shiny instruments in hand, they've come together again, a step forward in the road to recovery.
"It's going to be a bit of a long haul in terms of the recovery and the rebuilding and it's overwhelming if you really look at it from that point of view but with each individual step something as simple as a student returning to school and reconnecting with his or her fellow students and making music together, they have an opportunity to build community again," said Gayle.
