A video of a U.S. boy with disabilities playing percussion with his high school marching band has gone viral, with many praising the band for the act of inclusion.
The boy’s mother shared the clip on Facebook earlier this week, writing that her son Isaac rarely gets to do what his older brother Aidan does. When Aidan suggested Isaac join the marching band at their New Mexico high school, she was skeptical. But she let the two go to band camp together for weeks.
“I figured Isaac was helping set up equipment or run water bottles, and he came home every day very happy and chatty,” Carissa Brealey Bonacci wrote on Facebook.
But when the Onate High School band’s first performance came over the weekend, Isaac wasn’t a helper on the sidelines—he played percussion just like his big brother.
“He stood front and center in the percussion pit and totally jammed on a drum pad,” his mother wrote. “The pad muted his playing, which was pretty off-beat and completely out of sync with the rest of the band, but he had the time of his life. I bawled.”
The Facebook video has been viewed more than a million times, with many users praising the band and boy’s brother, calling it an exemplary act of inclusion.
“Inclusion is a beautiful thing and music brings us ALL together,” wrote one user. “As a band nerd this completely warms my heart,” wrote another.
For the boys’ mother, the level of acceptance and appreciation Isaac received was something she never expected outside the family.
“I’m so used to Isaac being treated like a burden (with varying degrees of patience and tolerance), even by relatives,” she wrote. “I just had to share. I couldn’t be prouder of both my boys.”
