Farmingdale Concert: Will Sing For Food To Perform Benefit For Long Island Cares

FARMINGDALE, NY — A concert benefiting Long Island Cares is scheduled for 5 p.m. Feb. 4 at The Nutty Irishman, at 323 Main St., Farmingdale.

Will Sing For Food, a musical group that performs charity concerts for LI Cares's The Harry Chapin Food Bank, is set to perform 25 to 30 songs with a mix of rock, pop, country, jazz, and blue grass. The group performs some obscure music, as well as popular favorites that people can sing along to.

Tickets, worth $50, can be purchased here. A buffet dinner is included in the ticket prices, but drinks cost extra.

"The fact that people are living on Long Island who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, especially in an affluent town like Garden City or Nassau County, it’s just mind boggling," Andrew Morreale, co-creative director of Will Sing For Food, told Patch. "It’s always been something that we always thought we could try and help and address."

Morreale plays guitar and mandolin. He is joined by Melissa Ryan, his "partner in crime," Music Director Billy Lucano, and his daughter, Anna Belanger, the group's assistant creative director.

They will be joined by Long Island Cares CEO Paule Pachter, who plans to perform lead vocals on one song while providing background vocals on another. Pachter has been singing in public since 1971.

Will Sing For Food has raised more than $211K for Long Island Cares so far.

Pachter wanted to express his gratitude to Will Sing For Food for "raising so much money to support our work over the years."

Will Sing For Food has been partnering with Long Island Cares for roughly five years, Morreale said. They remain the only large organization the musical group currently aligns with.

"When we connected with Paule Pachter and Long Island Cares, it was a perfect, perfect connection with them, because they’re created by Harry Chapin," Morreale said. "It’s always been his mission to try and help the food-insecure. They have this passionate love of music. It was a perfect blend for us."

Long Island Cares uses its funding to provide food to various pantries across Long Island.

Pachter said the partnership is important and fitting because Long Island Cares was founded by a musician and songwriter.

"It also fits into our focus on engaging the music industry in our work, especially through our Music Industry Council which is a subcommittee of our board initiatives," Pachter said.

Will Sing For Food performs a winter concert every January or February, and tries to host a summer concert annually, as well.

The group originated in the basement of the Garden City Community Church in 2011. Morreale, a longtime member of the church, was doing community theater there. His wife, Nancy, was head of the church's board of outreach. The church was trying to raise money for the Mary Brennan Inn, a local soup kitchen.

"She was like, 'Why don’t we join forces? You take your musical talent and people you’ve tapped into in the community who are talented vocalists and performers, and let’s do an event where we can raise money for the local pantries,'" Morreale recalls his wife saying.

Morreale and his family raised their kids on going on mission trips and have always been into giving back to the food-insecure population.

"This became a real hook for us, because we were like, 'What if we just try spreading the joy of music, and through spreading the joy of music, rally people toward this mission and this cause?' This way, the people who come to these events would actually have a great time, enjoy the music, and they wouldn’t even know it, but at the same time, you’re getting them to connect to this cause and really help by making donations. This way, they get something and we get something in return. It’s always been our goal to do some sort of grassroots, community-based volunteer work. This, mixed with the music, is a perfect blend for us."

Pachter said he wants to encourage people to attend the concert on Feb. 4 to enjoy the performance while donating to people in need.

Patch has partnered with Feeding America since 2020 to help raise awareness in our local communities of hunger, a persistent national problem exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Feeding America, which supports 200 food banks and 60,000 local meals programs across the country, estimates that nearly 34 million people, including 9 million children — about 1 in 6 Americans — are living with food insecurity. This is a Patch social good project; Feeding America receives 100 percent of donations. Find out how you can donate in your community or find a food pantry near you.