BY RYAN O’CONNOR

Lauren Hurley, a freshman at Bow High School, has been ill since November. Though doctors now think it may be Lyme disease, the diagnosis is still uncertain.

Hurley has been out of school for the past six weeks, but that didn’t stop her from making a cameo at the Interact Club’s third annual Battle of the Bands fundraiser Saturday, April 7.

There she played with her band, Just Plain Grapefruit, which filled in for two bands that canceled a week before the event.

“I slept the whole day, but I decided that performing is something I love to do, and my friend Stephen (Bosse) is in the band with me and didn’t want to do it by himself, so we were able to practice after 4 p.m., when I wake up. We did it and had a blast,” said Hurley.

Originally, Hurley’s band was just supposed to provide entertainment in between the performances of other bands.

“For me, it was the first time I had done a performance that wasn’t in a coffee shop, so it was pretty exciting to get my first real performing chance,” she said, adding that the cause made her experience all the more special.

“The Interact Club does a lot of good, and I figured it was something we could do to help out the Bow community and have some fun as well,” she said.

Junior Sarah Parnass said Interact, which is sponsored by the Bow Rotary Club, handles a number of fundraisers each year.

“It’s great to get people from other communities involved,” said Parnass, who noted Hopkinton Middle/High School’s Interact Club was also involved in promoting and selling tickets to the event. One of the bands, Liquid Mandy, was from Hopkinton.

“It’s  just a great fundraiser for us as a service-based organization,” she continued. “It went pretty well, although it wasn’t as successful as last year, but MTV attended last year.”

Last year, the club sent money to Camp Sunshine, which hosts children with terminal illness and their families. One of the band members was on MTV’s “Made,” reality show, drawing a large contingent of students.

This year, planning was a little more difficult, said Parnass, noting the two bands that dropped out.

Still, she said the club was able to raise a good amount of money for Pure Water for the World, an organization promoting clean water and filters in Honduras.

Another fundraiser the Interact Club is currently participating in is the Dollars for Darfur campaign, which sends funds to refugee camps and goes toward eliminating genocide there.

Club members are also preparing for roadside pickup, which members do twice a year, cleaning trash off Bow roadways and leaving it in trash bags on the side of the road to be transported to the dump.

“It helps beautify our community,” said Parnass.

Other groups that performed at the Battle of the Bands include Between Cities and Skylines and Without Borders.