On Friday night, Jan. 6, a blues/ rock band known as Black Honey, comprised of students of Farmingdale High School, a HS alumnus and a vocalist from Kentucky, performed an astounding benefit concert in honor of Jimmy Ossenfort.
Farmingdale and North Massapequa residents and students, as well as guests from all over Long Island, gathered at Farmingdale High School to raise money to help the Ossenfort Family. Twenty-two-year-old Jimmy Ossenfort suffered multiple, critical injuries as a result of a November 2011 motor vehicle accident.
The band members from Black Honey, Ryan Costello (lead guitar), Matthew Ferrara (rhythm guitar) Mark Morales (drums), Zack Reyes (bass) and Dakota Clayton (vocals) wanted to show their support for the Ossenfort family and decided to use their talents for a benefit concert for Jimmy. Black Honey rocked the house for almost two hours. Jimmy and the Gooch opened the show for Black Honey and the Wantagh-based band awed the audience with their unique sound of vocal harmonies and acoustic instruments.
Russ Catanzaro and Ralph Morales, both of whom are involved with Farmingdale P.A.L., organized an outstanding fundraiser, which raised $4,000 for the Ossenfort family. Ralph was the M.C for the fundraiser and he kept the audience enthralled with his unique style! The fundraiser was such a rousing success because of the invaluable contributions of so many in the Farmingdale community, including Glen Zakian (FHS principal), Jeff Pritzker (audio-visual technician of the Farmingdale Public Schools), Rita Padden (director of fine arts), Barbara Lieberman (FHS music teacher), Gina Pellettiere (FHS music teacher), Bill Bucholtz (art teacher), Sharon Piraino (Albany Avenue School secretary), FHS security supervision staff, and each and every one of the student volunteers who helped with the visual and the audio. Additionally, further gratitude must be extended to the selfless volunteers who ran the bake sale in the hall outside of the auditorium. They baked, served and collected donations while the concert was going on. Last but not least, special gratitude goes out to the community that came out on such short notice and donated to help make this fundraiser such a success.
Audience members included Jimmy Ossenfort’s brothers, Christopher, a student at Howitt Middle School and Timmy, a student at Albany Avenue School; and his sister, Kerri, a junior at FHS. During the intermission, Ralph Morales called up Timmy to randomly select the winning ticket for the 70/30 raffle that took place and the winner graciously donated her winning portion of the raffle back to the Ossenfort family. A local clothing store, Denim Rehab, donated a $50 gift card to the fundraising event and the winner of the card, seventh grader Nick Capellino, also donated the gift card back to Jimmy’s family.
Black Honey ended the exceptional Benefit Concert with one of their original songs, which they dedicated to Jimmy, appropriately titled “You’re Not Alone.”
