Jam for Sam at Red Hills Brewing raises money to fight cancer

The Jam for Sam – a family-friendly music event held at Red Hills Brewing Company in Homewood on Sunday, Sept. 10 – raised money for the fight against childhood cancers and honored Sam Lapidus, who succumbed to the disease.

Lapidus – a fitness enthusiast and member of the Levite Jewish Community Center – died in 2008, just before his 15th birthday.

The event – attended by about 200 people – was sponsored by the LJCC and the Mesch AZA youth club, of which Lapidus was a member.

Most of the proceeds will go to the Alabama Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children’s of Alabama hospital.

The event was organized by Mesch AZA members Jack Steinmetz, a junior at Mountain Brook High School, and Cole Hamilton, a senior at MBHS.

The musical acts scheduled to appear at the Jam were pop vocalist Savannah Smith, folk-rock duo The Old Paints and the band Ice Station Zebra.

Lapidus is remembered fondly for continuing to work out and maintain great relationships with the LJCC staff even as he battled cancer, according to Steinmetz.

“He became a name in the community,” he said.

Lapidus did not let cancer “get in the way of life,” Steinmetz said. “He enjoyed every second of it.”

And it means a lot to the organizers to stage the Jam for Sam.

“Everyone knows that (Lapidus) was a good person and that this is a good cause,” Hamilton said.

And people all want to do what they can to fight cancer, especially childhood cancers, according to Hamilton. “This brings the community together,” he said.

“It’s our way to give back,” Steinmetz said. “The Lapidus family is very involved in the community. It’s our way to give back to them and to fight cancer.”

The event means a lot to Sam’s family, according to his father, Billy Lapidus.

“It makes us to happy and keeps him alive,” he said. “Sam loved music. He loved his friends. He would really just love everything about this. He wouldn’t like the fuss made in his name, but he would be here enjoying himself.”

The youth group sponsored the Jam for Sam for about five years beginning in 2010, but the event was dropped, according to Hamilton.

He and Steinmetz revived the idea.

The Jam for Sam will not replace the annual, long-running Sam Lapidus Montclair Run, which the LJCC will host again later this year, according to Hamilton and Steinmetz.

The event Sunday raised about $2,000 even before walk-up ticket and T-shirt sales began, according to Steinmetz and Hamilton.

Steinmetz, who will still be involved in the youth group next year as a high-school senior, hopes to stage the Jam for Sam again, probably back at Red Hills Brewing.

The management at Red Hills have been “very generous” and “very welcoming,” Steinmetz said.