Everywhere I go, I get the same question.

It happened when I was squeezing melons at a grocery in suburban Cleveland. Happened in Pittsburgh, too, in a room full of journalists and backstage in Los Angeles at "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson." I even was stopped in the halls of Congress by someone who just had to ask:

How's the Shaw band doing?

I just love answering that question.

In late January, I told readers that Shaw High School's Mighty Cardinals Marching Band has been invited to represent our country at events in China leading up to the 2008 Olympics.

A real honor. Really expensive, too, especially for this school district in East Cleveland, one of the poorest cities in the country. They had to raise $220,000 by March 18. By the end of January, they had $25,695.59 cash in hand and only eight weeks to go.

Something about those kids really tugged at readers' hearts in Cleveland and across the country. Maybe it was the students' determination to defy outsiders' low expectations. Or maybe it was the band's director, Donshon Wilson — a proud Mighty Cardinal alumnus — who decided to move back home and help the band after he learned that it was down to a handful of drummers.

Some readers had seen the band perform. And that changes a person. As one caller put it, "You hear those kids play, and the world just looks better."

The money started pouring in. As of last Thursday, the total was $545,226.47, most of it from individual donors.

This generosity is doing amazing things for the Mighty Cardinals. The 60 students now will wear band uniforms made for the hot, humid weather of China in June. Each of them is getting three pieces of luggage, and their names will be embroidered on them.

The school also is buying additional uniforms and more musical instruments — and for the best of reasons: The band program is expanding to include middle-school students.

Many people are donating more than money, Wilson said. "We have, on average, two to three visitors a week who want to talk to the band to help them with an aspect of the trip."

Shaker Heights, Ohio, band students and chaperones sat down with the Shaw students to share their own experiences from an earlier trip to China, including a tutorial on Chinese food.

Craig Platt, a General Electric executive who has volunteered countless hours to help the band, chuckled in recounting that discussion.

"Most Chinese food here is very different from the food you actually find in China," he said. "You've got to get your head around that."

Recently, the district began mailing more than 4,000 thank you letters. "We are so grateful as a district," Superintendent Myrna Loy Corley said. "We've been overwhelmed by this generosity that speaks to the children, that lets them know that people really do care about them and that they're proud of them."

Platt said the untold story is what "terrific ambassadors" these kids will be. As an example, he described the band's recent visit to a home for the elderly in East Cleveland. "We're talking about people 65 and older, some of them in wheelchairs, some of them on oxygen, but these kids just walked up to them and started talking to them," he said. "Four bands who went before us performed big-band music, and so we warned them, 'You might want to pull back your chairs for this one.'"

Then the Mighty Cardinals did what the Mighty Cardinals always do: They played their hearts out, and the residents stared at them in wonder.

At one point, a 91-year-old man stood up and said, "I still play the drums."

Immediately, one of the boys, with a snare drum strapped to his waist, walked over to the man and handed him his sticks.

"He played and played, and the kids cheered him on," Platt said, grinning and shaking his head. "And the more they cheered the taller he got."

That's some diplomacy.

And the ambassadors of the Shaw Marching Band are taking it to China.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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