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• Friends, family and community remember Ashley Ames

To a certain extent, we all worry about making a mark on this world. We want to be known, to be loved and to make a difference, even if it is just in the life of one person. Ashley Ames needn’t have worried.

In the wake of her passing on July 6, friends, family members and the community have been doing their part to make sure that her memory lives on and that her life is celebrated.

“Now, we are making this a sort of celebration of her life,” said Alice Cronenberg, co-administrator of Ashleyfest and a friend of Ames. “We are recognizing just how many people she touched.”

Hopefully, this is a number that will continue to grow.

Since Ames had been working to put herself through school while living in Urbana, those close to her are now trying to help students like her.

“We are going to take all the funds that are raised and put them towards a scholarship for students, who are living independently or whose parents can’t help them pay for school,” said Jeanie Austin, a friend of Ames.

Among the “about ten very active members on the planning team” that Cronenberg praises, Austin has been doing what she can to help put the benefit together by cataloging art and contacting artists. The fact that this includes national artists interspersed with the many local ones is not surprising considering donations for the Ashley Ames Fund have come from as far away as Canada and Western Europe.

“It started with the art show idea, and then we wanted to have a concert, so we put out a call for bands, and we instantly had about 20 bands call and want to be a part of the benefit,” said Cronenberg. “We’ve taken as many on as we can.”

As artists and musicians come together, the benefit has become something befitting the life and loves of Ashley Ames.

“Ashley was an artist herself. A lot of us met Ashley through the punk music scene in Champaign. We’ve all known and been aware of how much Ashley loved art,” said Cronenberg. “This would be something she would love.”