WHITE MILLS, PA — On Saturday, September 10, Jamie Rutherford and his expansive, yet tight-knit crew are throwing a party. Surrounded by a wall of towering pine trees, the celebration takes place each year at Dorflinger-Suydam Wildlife Sanctuary, and from sunup to sundown,  it features the music of local artists.

Most of the music pays tribute to bygone eras of rock n’ roll—the psychedelia of the 1960s, the following decade’s fusion of folk, blues and heavy rock, 1980s new wave, 1990s alternative.

This is the soundtrack that the event organizers—who refer to themselves as the “Fall Music Fest Committee”—have grown up listening to. It’s what’s gotten them through life’s highs, lows and upsets. And it’s the music an entire community of friends will be singing and dancing along to at the sixth annual Fall Music Festival, dubbed by locals as “the best day of the year.”

“It is a party,” Rutherford said about the festival now. “But it’s not just a party.”

Todd Stephens—chief operating officer at the local Stephens Pharmacy—who fronts Gram Baxtr, one of the headlining bands, nodded his head in agreement, “It’s a party with purpose.”

Their collective sense of purpose has helped the organizers turn the annual festival at Dorflinger into one of the largest single-event fundraisers in the area. Since its inception, they’ve raised more than $150,000 for a host of local charities and scholarship programs.

James Rutherford—the “visionary and dreamer” behind the Fall Music Fest—stands among the crowd gathered at last year’s festival. According …

Where it all began

The music, the fundraising, the celebration, the community—it all began from tremendous loss. A group of lifelong friends found themselves facing one tragedy after another. They lost Kate Frisch Carmody, a dear friend, to lung cancer in 2014. A couple of years later, another crushing blow came when their close friend Billy Rogers passed away unexpectedly. In the summer of 2018, Brian Hunt Rutherford, Jamie’s son, died tragically in a farm tractor accident at the age of 27.

In the wake of losing so much, Rutherford said that he and his closest friends banded together and asked, “What do we have to give? How can we help?”

“Think of all the good we can do,” Rutherford recalls saying at the time. “And now we say, ‘Think of all the good we are doing.’ That’s what drives me: the ability to give back to our community, and the ability to bring our community together.”

The inaugural event was informal. A couple of local bands performing on a homemade stage, a bunch of old friends from high school gathering in Wayne County Commissioner Joe Adams’ backyard.

Though informal, it wasn’t hard to see the potential for something bigger. Rutherford said that in the first year, “without really even trying,” around 600 people showed up for the music, and they raised about $10,000 for local charities.

With each passing year, the festival gets bigger. The number of participants and attendees have both grown, and the mission to give back to the community has expanded and become more varied. However, Stephens said that given the nature of the event, there’s room for growth without losing the local, homegrown quality.

“As people go through changes in their own lives, they see as a sign of hope,” he said. “Each year, more people are asking, ‘How can I be a part of this? How can I turn my loss and hardship into something positive for someone else?’”

Though the festival has outgrown its original homemade stage, they have hardly forgotten where it all started. In fact—in a testament to keeping in touch with one’s roots—the festival crew recently repurposed the original stage to serve as the foundation for a 16-foot-by-24-foot cabin built for Stephens and his wife, Richelle.

“To me, that’s what the Fall Music Festival is all about,” Rutherford said. “The ability to give is a gift in itself.”

Joe Gombita, left, Jamie Rutherford, Joe Adams, Cody Gilbert and Travis Gilbert were some of the crew members who repurposed the original Fall Music …

Hardship, growth, opportunity

In early 2020, a sense of loss and hardship became unusually universal as the world grappled with the arrival of a little-understood virus known as COVID-19. With businesses shuttered—some for good—and people following government orders to stay at home, it suddenly became much more difficult to maintain that sense of tight-knit community that runs deep in Wayne County.

In the midst of the lockdown, Rutherford was sitting at home, watching Marty Stuart and Vince Gill performing music at the Grand Ole Opry, minus the audience.

“Why can’t we do that?” Rutherford asked.

As always, the question soon became, “How do we do it?”

After placing a few phone calls, Rutherford quickly got the Wallenpaupack High School auditorium lined up as the venue; a team of friends volunteering to run lights, sound and video; and a group of musicians champing at the bit to perform.

Between April and May of that year, the Fall Music Festival team churned out weekly livestreams of local musicians performing to an empty auditorium, but reaching hundreds of listeners at home. Those listening were urged to give whatever they could to the Wayne County Emergency Food Relief Fund, a county-wide effort by local government officials and businesses to ensure that people had enough to eat during that trying time.

Many of the people involved in that livestream series have stayed on as lasting members of the team, including Lou and Ekat Pereyra. Lou ran sound during the livestreams and now volunteers at the soundboard at each year’s festival. Ekat performed during the livestreams and has now become a regular part of the festival’s lineup, singing lead vocals in her band Ekat & Friends.

“After their livestream, Ekat and Lou asked if they could come back and help out again next week, and I told them I really don’t have any money to pay you, because we’re trying to raise it all for the food relief fund,” Rutherford said. “And they told me, ‘Well no, we don’t want that. We just want to come back and help.’”

People are inherently eager to help, Rutherford has learned throughout the past six years; they just need the opportunity. The Fall Music Festival, he said, gives them that opportunity.

“When we saw how many fantastic musicians were involved, all the good the organizers do for the area, and the immense sense of community that they have created, it was really a no-brainer that we wanted to be a part of it,” Ekat said, adding that she performs gigs at large venues all year long, but that this one stands out. “The organizers really go out of their way to make the performers feel special… it’s much more than just another date on my calendar.”

For the past several years, the Dorflinger-Suydam Wildlife Sanctuary and its scenic amphitheater have been the home for the Fall Music Festival.

‘The best day of the year’

This year’s Fall Music Festival kicks off with a YMCA “Run to the Music” 5K on the grounds of Dorflinger, beginning at 8:30 a.m., featuring the young musical talents of Callie Gelderman, who has been performing since the age of five, and Samantha Antonetti, a singer-songwriter who has already released music online as Sammy Isabela. Maddie Franckowiak, the festival’s youngest performer, will perform the National Anthem at 12 noon.

Starting at noon, the festival lineup includes Two-Chicks-One-Guitar, Ekat & Friends, Bat Out of Hell, Arnie’s Milk Truck, Ballard Spahr Galactica, O&Co., Gram Baxtr and Steppin’ Eddy.

For Rutherford, watching some of his best friends—and favorite musicians—performing to a crowd of community members several generations deep; it’s a poignant reminder of everything he loves about Wayne County. And all of it, music, friendship, nostalgia, generosity, grief and resilience, will be on display at the Fall Music Festival.

“When you grow up here and continue living here, you know your friends’ parents, their grandparents; your kids know their kids,” Rutherford said. “There’s that common thread that kind of runs through the generations. People leave and come back, and they realize it’s different here. And it is; it’s special.”

Tickets are available at local businesses, including Stephens Pharmacy and Northeast Med- Equip; Visible Changes; Paulie’s Hot Dogs; Mane Creations; Sawmill Cycle and East Shore Lodging. They are also available for purchase online.