Still jamming: SamJam fundraiser for genetic disorder has a new look, venue
More than 30 years ago when his son, Sam, was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis (NF), a genetic disorder that causes tumors to form on nerve tissue, Peter Oswald said it felt like a lot of times he was helping educate Sam's doctors.
"What I appreciate so much now is the amount of information and valid information on the internet and research studies you can get into. It's leaps and bounds ahead of where I started 30 years ago," said Peter Oswald, the owner and founder of Oswald & Others Creative Marketing Group in Carlinville. "That's what's kept me interested and involved on the public awareness side. More doctors know about it, too."
With other family members and friends, Oswald helped create SamJam Music & Brewfest in 2014, an annual fundraiser in honor of Sam Oswald, now 38 and still living in Carlinville.
Now SamJam's BBQ & Boogie will have a new look, with a sit-down dinner and a different venue, the Rustic Venues in rural Girard. The fundraiser's only home has been the Macoupin County Fairgrounds in Carlinville.
Sean Canan's Voodoo Players headlines the event, along with bluegrass band As the Crowe Flies, on Nov. 18. Both bands are from St. Louis.
In the past, SamJam has attracted bands like Trout Steak Revival, ClusterPluck and members of the Old Crow Medicine Show.
Oswald said the revamping was a combination of things: scheduling, availability of help and "seeing if something new might attract the same crowd, but yet a different crowd or additional people."
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SamJam has raised nearly $80,000 over the years, with the funds going to NF Midwest, Inc. for research and patient support services and some family services, Oswald said. NF Midwest covers a six-state area.
Sam Oswald was diagnosed at age 4, though then it was more commonly referred to as Von Recklinghausen's disease. It was also a time Peter Oswald, the former public relations director at Blackburn College, was doing his own research on NF at the college's library.
"It's night and day compared to what it used to be three decades ago," he said.
Sam's most recent health concerns included removal of a tumor near his esophagus and the recurrence of cancer in his left leg.
Doctors excised the tumor, he said, and Sam didn't have to endure either chemotherapy or radiation for his leg.
"He seems to heal well, let's put it that way," Peter Oswald said.
Sam has had a litany of procedures through the years, including a spinal fusion, surgeries on his knee, eye and tumors on his brain and shunt revisions.
"He's still living in his house and getting around," Peter Oswald said of Sam. "Of course, everyone (around Carlinville) knows him. To see him, people wouldn't realize the surgeries he's gone through."
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Canan has played SamJam a couple of times and is known for putting together bands from a stable of musicians that play covers of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimmy Buffett, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead and Phish. Oswald said the Voodoo Players will do "a mix tape show" at SamJam.
The dinner will be catered by Fat Albert’s BBQ, which along with the Rustic Venues is operated by the Hammann family, and there will be a cash bar, a silent auction and a drawing for a five-day Caribbean cruise.
Doors open at 5 p.m., with dinner from 5:30 to 7 p.m. As the Crowe Flies takes the stage at 6 p.m. followed by Sean Canan’s Voodoo Players at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $20-$35 and available at a number of Carlinville businesses and online at www.Samjam4NF.com.
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: SamJam is a fundraiser for neurofibromatosis in Girard on Nov. 18.
