Photo by Ally Orndorff

On the night of Friday, Jan. 26, starting at 6 pm, WJ students flooded the cafeteria and the auditorium to enjoy Cats 4 The Cure Fest, a new leadership event featuring food catered from Bubble Tea, Chick-fil-A, JennyCakes and Papa John’s and live music performed by bands Throwing Wrenches, M. Maggie and Cafune.

According to the event’s planners, Fest went as planned. Senior and Leadership student Evan Candelmo, who helped organize the event, believes the turnout was the only shortcoming.

“It was a success, even though attendance was not as high as we expected… I only got positive feedback throughout the night,” Candelmo said.

Senior Gustavo Guevara attended Fest and found it very entertaining, though he expected more concertgoers.

“I thought that a lot more people would go….  it was indeed very loud, though,” Guevara said.

Senior and Leadership student Edom Mesfein helped orchestrate the event along with Candelmo and a few other students.

She says the bands were happy with the audience’s reaction.

“[The bands’] feedback was so positive… I think it was a success,” Mesfein said.

Originally, members of the Leadership class tried to open the event to students from other schools. Due to security issues, only WJ students ended up attending.

“We wanted it to be a WJ community event with other people from other schools.. but we had some limitations because of safety,” Mesfein said. She cites ticket distribution as one of the causes of the unexpectedly small turnout.

Guevara’s primary motivation for attending Fest was hearing the bands. He believes the best part was being able to spend time with the bands afterwards.

“My favorite part was definitely interacting with the bands and the singers,” Guevara said.

According to Mesfein, the bands were happy to play.

“The artists really enjoyed their time here, they said that all the WJ kids were really enthusiastic,” Mesfein said.

Some of the artists may even return to WJ to play at another event.

Her favorite part of Fest was the food served before and after the performances.

“If you didn’t come out to hear the music, you came out for the food, and it was really fun,” Mesfein said.

The Pennies for Patients event raised an estimated $5,000.

Guevara found the concert comparable to a real music festival, for the most part.

“It definitely was missing that whole large crowd aspect, but besides that, I think it was [similar],” Guevara said.

He considers Fest to be one of the more entertaining Pennies for Patients fundraisers, and believes there should be another festival in the future.

Mesfein credits Candelmo for the bands present, and does not think it would be possible without him.

“Evan has all these connections and he literally makes all of this happen… without him I don’t really see it happening again,” Mesfein said.