Ma Barley Helps VOCA and The Healing Circle Turn 21 At Astoria Events

Local News

Tryan Hartill June 23, 2008

Recent Astoria Graduate Manasseh Israel Also Performs At Sunday Fundraiser

The show was advertised as “All Ages” and all ages it was. About 80 people from 3 to 70+ years old danced and donated at the Astoria Events Center on Sunday evening. The reason for the event was Victims Over Child Abuse (VOCA) which provides annual camp programs for child survivors of sexual abuse. Although she didn’t have a dollar amount, after the event VOCA Coordinator Margaret Frimoth said, “it was a huge success.”

Recent Astoria graduates and music duo Justin Roberts and Sophie Dewitt kicked things off by taking the stage for a few songs. They then gave the stage to Manasseh Israel, who has just recently produced an album titled Good Day Sunshine and plans to attend The Berklee College of Music in Boston.

After Israel it was time for the main act: Ma Barley. Led by Mark Erickson, Ma Barley is a group of 6 or 7 locals that perform cover songs of Reggae star Bob Marley and their performance enticed a large part of the crowd to the dance floor.

After the first song lead singer Mark Erickson, who also teaches 6th grade at Astoria Middle School, said that they would be taking music requests, but not requests to be in his 6th grade class next year, which drew a round of laughs. (And later a 10 year old admitted that she was the one that requested to be in his class) After Ma Barley played thier first set, the 50/50 raffle ticket was drawn by one of the grade school students in attendance and the winner promptly donated the winnings back to VOCA.