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The Vindys will take a break from its tour with Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo to play the Rock the Rich Center benefit on Saturday at the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre.

What started as a lip sync battle has grown into an outdoor concert with a national headliner.

This year’s Rock the Rich Center, benefiting the Paula & Anthony Rich Center for Autism, moves from Mr. Anthony’s in Boardman to the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre.

The Vindys, who played the event in 2023 and 2024, will be back and joined by Lita Ford, who was a member of all all-female band The Runaways in the 1970s and had a successful solo career in the 1980s with hits such as “Kiss Me Deadly” and “Close My Eyes Forever,” the latter a duet with Ozzy Osbourne.

Jake Ellis attended the 2023 event before he was hired as the Rich Center’s community engagement and event coordinator, and said he was “blown away” by the fundraiser. After he was hired, Ellis said, he had a conversation with Executive Director Mike Latessa.

“This is a really big event. It’s going really well for the Rich Center. I have a vision to scale this up. Can I run it by you? And he heard me out. He listened to me,” Ellis said. “I took it to our friends’ board, and I laid out the plan. And it’s led to where we are today.”

Putting together a lineup with two female-fronted acts was intentional. The Rich Center is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and the organization was started by a group of women who saw a need for services in the area for those affected by autism and their families. The center is named in memory of Paula and Anthony Rich, who were killed in a plane crash near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border in 1994.

“There were five women who banded together, and they started this thing in 1995,” Ellis said. “I saw a connection there, not only wanting to raise awareness for the autism community, but also to shine a light on these women who rocked. They are the foundation of how we started and where we are 30 years later.

“We have Jackie (Popovec), a great female vocalist for The Vindys, and I wanted to get another female rocker in there to really drive home that these women are out there doing remarkable things, and it’s because of them that 30 years later that we’re here. And I thought that Lita Ford was a great person to have involved. She has had a 40-year career herself. She has certainly hit bumps in the road, but she knows what it takes and what a grind it is.

Her determination has led to a 40-year career, just like our female founders here, who are still involved with us to this day.”

The Vindys may be a local band, but they’ll be traveling to take part in the event. The group is touring as the opening act for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo.

The band will be in northern Indiana on Friday before the show on Saturday and then has to be in Delaware for the final night of the tour on Sunday.

“We definitely plan to be hanging out before the show, doing the meet and greets, doing the pre-parties,” Popovec said on Saturday, the morning after a show in Columbus. “Then we were given the green light to go ahead and head off to Delaware that night. So we are going to be doing that, right after we check out Lita Ford, and we’ll head out on the road that night towards Delaware to do the last show, which will be a big party.”

This is the second year in a row that Benatar and Giraldo have taken The Vindys out on the road with them. In addition to The Vindys’ opening set, Popovec regularly joins Benatar on stage to sing “We Belong” or another song. There’s also been talk of Popovec singing on Giraldo’s next recording project.

“I feel so much more comfortable and confident on the stage singing next to this huge, powerful voice and hit maker, legend, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer,” Popovec said. “I was so scared the first time stepping on stage with her last tour. This time I feel like she wants me to stand up and be an equal with her singing, so more of my voice is coming out. Instead of being a background singer, I feel like I’m Jackie Popovec next to Pat Benatar. It’s been a really good feeling to feel like I’m a part of the family.”

However, it also was important to the band to be a part of Rock the Rich Center.

“They’ve just been really big supporters of The Vindys,” Popovec said. “It’s something that we enjoy doing and being a part of. They do well by us, and we want to do well by them. We just want to support them in their growth of the Rich Center and all the good things that they’ve been doing. It’s been a good relationship.”

Ellis praised The Vindys for their devotion to the Rich Center’s work.

“Jackie has personally come into the center and spent time with our kids, so they have an understanding of what we do, who we are and what autism is, and the fact that they have come back now for the third consecutive year just shows that they are really about helping the cause,” Ellis said. “And they’re a great group, a great band. Everybody enjoys them, and they’re doing great things for our center.”

If you go …

WHAT: Rock the Rich Center with Lita Ford and The Vindys

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre, 201 S. Phelps St., Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $28.50 to $75 and are available through Ticketmaster.

ALSO: Pre- and post-concert events are planned at Penguin City Brewing Co., 460 E. Federal St., Youngstown. Seamus and Rhyme of Silence will play from 4 to 6 p.m. before the event, and the Along for the Ride Band will play from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. following the amphitheater show.