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caption, page 1:
Particle Accelerator Fest. More photos on page 6. Linda Lemmon photo.
captions, page 6:
Top left: Arianna Fox, 2, of Coventry.
upper right: Evoke plays on stage at Putnam's Rotary Park under the watchful eye of Jack Young Jr., in photo at right. The festival raises money and awareness in honor of Young, who committed suicide.
Lower photos, left to right: Middle, left to right: Sierra Roireau, of Putnam (left) and Emma Howe of Massachusetts, decided French moustaches would work. Center: Jere Bachand of Evoke. Above: Jeffrey Buchbinder of Evoke.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
The rains may have roared through midway through the Particle Accelerator festival, but spirits were never dampened.
In its fourth year, Particle Accelerator, raised more than $5,000 to be used to help United Services in its campaign to help prevent suicide. The event is held in honor of Jack Young Jr., a talented local young man who took his own life. Wanting to do something to honor their friend's memory and talent, Young's friends decided that music and art were sound alternatives to suicide and depression. The art and music event was born.
This year organizers estimate about 1,000 people attended.
Organizers said: “The Particle Accelerator Benefit Music Festival is held annually in order to raise money for the prevention of suicide, as well as raise awareness about issues surrounding suicide and depression. Part of how we accomplish this is donating proceeds to United Services for their suicide prevention and depression awareness programs, but a very big part of what we do is to promote music and art as an alternative to depression, suicide, and drug and alcohol use for kids and adults. We feel that the negative stigma surrounding young people’s interest and passion for creating music and art, being in bands and just participating in the culture as a whole, has a negative impact on their perception of happiness. Music and art exist for the sole purpose of making us all feel good and stay feeling good; how many times has a great song inspired you to feel great and even do great things? The very concept that art can positively influence life is so contradictory to the stigma that it is a waste of time for kids to explore music and art, play in bands, and just generally be “into” the music and art culture. The negative stigma forces kids to attempt to reconcile the belief that being in a band or making music alone is a waste of time, with their love for the music. If you think about, putting a kid in this sort of position, to force them to chose between what is accepted by society and what ultimately makes them feel happy without the use of drugs and alcohol, is not something that is going to consistently produce positive results. So, by putting diverse musical performances on a stage in their own town, and watching as everyone from babies to grandparents listen and see and have a great time, really strikes close to home for many of these kids. We feel this is an extremely important counterpart to our mission.”
Some of the many vendors taking part in the fund-raiser were: Putnam Rotary Club, Putnam Lions, Putnam Music Association, Putnam PRIDE, United Services, the Young Family booth and many more. Sunny Skies Ice Cream, organizers said, is always a particularly generous donor. The volunteer coordinator, Sandra Vasquez "worked tirelessly to make sure the 100-plus volunteers from private sources, PRIDE, the Hyde School and various other places were always stationed and doing their jobs."
Entertainment scheduled included: Morgan's Dreamworld, Evoke, Billy Pilgrim, Battle Cry, Mike Bogdanski's Martial Arts demo, SEED, Kala Farnham, May and Me, Restless Souls, Adam Trudel, Shane Hall and the Ticklebomb Orchestra, ILYAIMY (I Love You And I Miss You), White Rose Confession.