Detroit marching band, percussionists, dancers funded by program founder’s 9-5 job

A community band based out of Church of the Messiah on Detroit's east side, has been changing its members' lives for nearly a generation.

In 14 years, the Forever Illustrating Real Entertainment (F.I.R.E.) marching band has helped at least 300 of its members secure scholarships across the U.S. and earn degrees in music, teaching, engineering and other fields.

Founder Joey Donaldson had a vision of creating a welcoming recreational program that gives kids facing hard times an outlet. Participants and alumni say he’s achieved that and more – creating an ecosystem of teachers and mentors who are nurturing the next generation through music.

Donaldson has done all of this while funding the program ― made up of a full-scale marching band, percussionists and dancers ― out of his own pocket.

“The only problem that we have with this program is, it’s moving so well, that we don’t get financial support,” Donaldson, 46 of Detroit, said. “People think, ‘Oh, that program is so great, they must be overwhelmed with funds,’ We’re still operating off my 9 to 5.”

Donaldson digs so deep into his own finances for F.I.R.E.'s members, in part, because of an opportunity he had to give up when he was their age.

The youngest of six children in a single-parent home, Donaldson was the first to get the chance to attend college after being offered music scholarships from four different universities including Florida A&M University and Kentucky State University. He declined them all to take care of his mother who was diagnosed with cancer, and instead attended Wayne County Community College.

"I was the one taking care of my mom … I was sort of the man of the house because all of my siblings, they went on to live their life," Donaldson said, noting his sisters started families, two of his brothers began working, and another went to the military. "Everybody was gone, and it was just me there."

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How F.I.R.E. started

Donaldson, a former music mentor at Kettering and Osborn High Schools, founded F.I.R.E. in 2009 as financial problems led Detroit Public Schools to cut music and arts programs.

“I had a lot of groups of kids that used to come into different schools that I worked with, and these were former gang members, and drug dealers and things like that,” Donaldson said.

“When they started shutting the programs down in the high school in DPS, a lot of these kids started going back into that element, going back in those communities, into the drugs and the gangs. So, I felt like I needed to do something to kind of stop that and slow that down.”

He recruited 14 former students and formed the first iteration of the F.I.R.E. band as a percussion group.

A church connection led to the program’s first significant expansion. In 2015, Donaldson met Al Rickmers, whose sister attended Church of the Messiah. Rickmers, 76 of Novi, helped Donaldson collect used and damaged instruments to donate to F.I.R.E. and spent between $15,000 and $20,000 in money he inherited from his father to purchase instruments and pay for repairs.

"I have no musical talent. And I'm tone-deaf," said Rickmers, noting he was kicked out of his high school choir and never made it as a trumpet player. "But I love music. And the idea that, here's a band helping kids and a chance to help make music, that was a miracle in my life."

Donaldson said that once a member is given an instrument, they get to keep it.

“These kids appreciate it more when it’s theirs,” Donaldson said. “Most of these instruments have a story. And sometimes the kids understand that story and that’s why we just let them take that instrumentation with them.”

F.I.R.E. has as many as 170 active members, ranging in ages from from 8 to 40, with most between 16 and 23. Over the years, F.I.R.E. has recruited members through word of mouth referrals, along with social media blasts about practice opportunities.

No music experience is required, just dedication.

“The only thing I ask is you come to practice. You learn the music. You learn the form and you are a part of the band,” Donaldson said.

Donaldson tries to bring kids into the program as early as elementary school to give students more time to learn the fundamentals.

"When we work with high schoolers, you probably get three, sometimes two years to work with them," he said. But in middle school, "you get all three years of middle school and then four years of high school, that's seven years total," Donaldson said. "By the time they get to college, they're already looking like professionals."

Donaldson said music can be a vehicle to help kids get to college, and provides a larger pool of scholarship opportunities than athletics. The expertise F.I.R.E. members develop can translate into a better chance at earning scholarship money.

'Bare-knuckles'

Donaldson works full-time as a manager for a local security company and contributes about $36,000 to F.I.R.E. annually, more than half of his yearly income.

That’s “bare knuckles,” Donaldson said. “That’s not how we want to run this program; it’s bare knuckles. A lot of things that we need and a lot of things we want, we can’t afford, so we have to do what we can ― bare knuckles”.

With more money, Donaldson would buy new instruments, specifically sousaphones, marching euphoniums and marching mellophones. He would repair instruments and pay for transportation for members to and from events.

Donaldson also would make the program year-round ― F.I.R.E.'s season runs from late April through September and extends into the holiday season with special appearances.

A tragedy motivates Donaldson to want to make F.I.R.E. a year-round program. Funding challenges forced Donaldson to temporarily shut down the program in 2013. After that, one of the band's original members spent more time with a relative whom, Donaldson said, he later learned was selling drugs.

A few days before one of F.I.R.E.'s holiday performances, that member informed Donaldson he needed to go out of town but would be back in time for the performance; it would be the last time the two spoke to each other. A few days later, Donaldson received a phone call from the member’s wife. He remembers her exact words.

“Joey, he’s dead. They killed him.”

Donaldson said he believes that if he had the money and resources to operate F.I.R.E. year-round, that young man would still be alive.

“I feel like, when I see those individuals that died of violent crimes or different things like that … I have to go harder, I have to go stronger. … I feel like I can do more if I had more, I could get them out of those situations,” Donaldson said. “I guess that’s something personally in me, but I always feel like I can help if I had more resources.”

Donaldson's ultimate goal is to establish a recreation center to serve as the band's permanent location ― a place that can be a refuge for members facing challenges while also offering them space for tutoring with the help of alumni band members.

Meanwhile, Church of the Messiah serves as the hub for the band. But a combination of flooding, roof damage and social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic kept the band from consistently practicing at the church, Donaldson said. The band also practices after regular business hours at the New Holy Cross Apostolic Church on the city’s northeast side. The Rev. Barry Randolph, pastor for Church of the Messiah, said renovations to the building are complete and he has spoken to Donaldson about bringing the band back to the church.

Creating an ecosystem

Donaldson’s program has led to an outcome he didn't expect. Members have gone on to become music teachers and directors across metro Detroit, and in colleges throughout the country, creating an ecosystem that fuels the program’s growth.

Alexandria Dinwiddie, 28 of Detroit, joined F.I.R.E. in 2018 as a clarinet player. In 2020 she began teaching music at Chandler Park Academy Middle School.

“F.I.R.E. basically opened the door for me to make connections with other band members and band directors … and that’s actually how I got the job that I have now," said Dinwiddie, who said four of her students are interested in joining F.I.R.E.

Dinwiddie also credits the program with helping her develop her leadership skills, which Donaldson identified when he asked her to become the director of F.I.R.E.'s woodwinds section in 2019.

Dinwiddie said F.I.R.E. is developing role models for young people interested in music.

“The main goal should always be to better our future, the children are our future, and so we need more role models and it starts somewhere,” Dinwiddie said. “And so I appreciate Joey for starting that system. …If we got more people like that, we’ll have more people like me, we’ll have more people like Tyrus.”

Dinwiddie is referring to Tyrus Walker, whom she met in a college All-Star Mass band in 2017. Walker, 32, splits his time between Detroit, where he is the volunteer director of F.I.R.E., and Wilberforce University, outside of Columbus, Ohio. There, he’s the assistant band director and chief executive arranger. Walker joined F.I.R.E. in 2015 and said the program helped him decide to pursue a degree in music education.

Walker remembers being a student who was given an instrument ― a mellophone ― when he joined the program and has since passed it on to a student at Oak Park High School.

"It's the main reason why I do this, just in general," Walker said. "I don't do this for the money … I do it so I can pass down exactly what was taught to me."

Last year, Wilberforce started a marching band with 150 students. Seventy of those kids are from Detroit. Walker has gone on to offer scholarships to F.I.R.E. members and said the program is contributing to a “striving” music scene that is helping build camaraderie and chemistry with members across metro Detroit and into college.

This year's Wilberforce band includes friends and fellow percussionists La’Mylo Friar, 22, and Tay’Shawn Braden, 19, both of Detroit. They said F.I.R.E. changed their trajectories.

“For me, it opened up a lot of doors due to the fact that when I went to Ohio, I really didn’t know anyone but (Friar) and like three other people," Braden said. His world expanded as he met other F.I.R.E. members at Wilberforce, he said.

Friar didn't want to attend college before joining the band, but F.I.R.E., he said, helped him find the motivation to pursue a degree in business management. Braden said college may not have been an option without his band scholarship at Wilberforce, where he is working to complete a degree in mass communications. Both are set to graduate in 2026.

These successes, Donaldson said, will fuel the program's growth and the personal development of its members, who so often given back to F.I.R.E.

“F.I.R.E. isn’t just a band. It’s a family. It’s a community that helps kids,” Donaldson said. “Music is what connects us, but this is more than just a band.”

Eric Guzmán covers youth sports culture at the Free Press as a corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support this work at bit.ly/freepRFA.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit's F.I.R.E. marching band helps students earn scholarships