Bands Battle It Out to Help Kahlan and Healey

Four sunny smiles and four sunny T-shirted girls greet early arrivals to the Battle of the Bands on Saturday, at the Camp Oakdale Pavilion.

Meagan McAdams, 13; Laura Commons, 14; Taylor LaVallie, 13; and Emily Dodson, 13, all are Leo’s Club members, and all have come out to work at the Battle of the Bands.

Proceeds from the event are going to help Hailey Sanderson and Kahlan Healy, both of whom have dire medical issues. Kahlan, daughter of teacher Daniel Healy, has leukemia. Ten years old, she has already survived one bout with the disease, and is now fighting a second. Hailey began having seizures when she was 20 months old. According to the Battle of the Bands Facebook page, she is now 2, and has survived major surgeries, and is learning to walk and talk and eat again.

When Megan McAdams thinks about these girls, she says, she feels bad. She wants to help.

All four want to help. You can see it in their faces and you can hear it in their voices.

“It’s a good thing that Montville is rallying together,” Emily says. When she thinks of Hailey and Kahlan, she thinks of strength.

The benefit Battle of the Bands is one of many fund-raisers for Kahlan and Hailey. A road race last weekend, hat days at Tyl and the high school, the sale of purple bracelets, these and other events all are helping the families of the girls to cope financially.

Zach Romanowski, Billy Edwards, Patrick Brown and Sean Keegan, all 14, are happy to be helping the girls, but mostly, they’ve come “to see music.” They don’t really know any of the eight bands that are scheduled to play, but it’s a lot of music for $5, and that’s good.

Throughout the grounds, and the pavilion, kids are having fun. It’s practically all teenagers, and they’re laughing and smiling, eating hot dogs and nachos, loving the music.

Rachael Skinner and Colby McAdams are the main Leos who organized the event. They got the bands together, went around town and collected sponsorships and donations, and worked on the event for a couple months. On Saturday, they are having fun, but they’re busy, too, making sure everything happens on time, and everyone knows what they’re doing and where they’re going.

Diana Grise is one of the Leos Club’s four advisors. The other three are Bruce Engelman, Richard Goldman and Rosemary Desmarais. Grise and Desmarais are at the event on Saturday, helping.

The Leos, Grise says, have been around in Montville for 15 years. The club is for kids from 12-18 years old, who want to help the community. Every dollar the Leos raise goes back to the community.

She’s impressed with the work McAdams and Skinner have done on the event, how they planned and executed it. She and some other Lions Club members are at the Pavilion to collect money, cook food and be available.

“Usually, the Leos help the Lions,” she says. “This time, the Lions are helping them.”

The girls at the entrance all really like being Leos. Meagan says all kids should join the Leos club.

Taylor agrees. “It feels good,” she says, “helping out the town.”

The bands in the Battle of the Bands were:

• Skye’s the Limit
• Fifties Slang
• Dying Clown in a Skin Casket
• Fish House
• Izm - The Winner!
• Sunnie
• Faceless Thursday
• Reame

Sponsors of the event were:

• The Dime Bank
• R&W Heating
• The Hillery Co. Metal Fabrication
• Eastern Energy Services
• Cirrito Mechanical
• The Nutmeg Companies
• Kennedy Sheet Metal Co.
• Rhaume Heating – Uncasville Oil
• Hart Mechanical
• BH Bugbee Plumbing