Gardeners Green Folk Club is stepping out of its usual house concert venue for a very special musical event at the Merville Community Hall on Wednesday July 19.
Two things are particularly special about this concert. The first is that it is a benefit for the family of six-year-old Ursula Joy, who is currently going round three with brain cancer. The other is that it will be a reunion concert by the great local girl band of the early 2000s, The Island Girls.
Many people will remember the lively group of five multi-talented girls from Campbell River and Merville, who in their preteen years came together through a love for Celtic-style music, and formed a band called The Island Girls. For the following five years or so these girls entertained audiences all over the Island, across Canada, and in the UK and Europe. They played a dozen instruments between them, sang lovely harmonies, wrote some of their own material, recorded three CDs, and step-danced their way into the memories of those who saw them. Eventually they graduated from high school and went their separate ways into adulthood, but have kept in close contact ever since, despite two living as far away as Scotland and Winnipeg.
People who remember The Island Girls still often ask when there will be a reunion concert, and up until now there has never been the occasion when all could get together. But now, more than a decade after their great musical adventures together, the girls are going to reconvene for a fundraiser concert in support of band member Jenni Joy’s sister’s family, whose youngest daughter Ursula Joy is facing her third episode of brain cancer, her first being diagnosed at eighteen months of age.
Needless to say, it is an unimaginably stressful situation for the Hornby Island family in every way, including financially. Over the last few months, Gardeners Green Folk Club has been raising money to help out, and they are hoping The Island Girls Reunion Concert will be attended and enjoyed by many as well as be a successful fundraiser.
The Island Girls – Georgina, Stephanie, Marissa, Nicole and Jenni – are of course young women now, and they’re all involved with music in some way. They have promised to revive some of their old favourites from the past, as well as treating those in attendance to some new material.
Although the event will be at the Merville Hall in order to accommodate all those who want to attend, the Garden Club says it will retain some of the features people enjoy from our Gardeners Green house concerts, including the always popular raffle with great prizes and delicious refreshments – including the much-loved rhubarb/ginger cake. All the money raised will go directly to Ursula’s family.
Tickets are $20 ($10 for kids) and will be sold at the door on the night of the concert. The doors will open at 7 p.m. with the concert starting promptly at 7:30. The date is Wednesday July 19, so be sure to mark it on your calendars.