Wherever McKayla Wall went, there was music.

Whether she was playing with the Tamaqua Area High School marching band or driving around with friends in her unmistakable yellow Volkswagen Beetle, music followed her.

“That was totally her thing,” recalled her friend Lauren Wandzilak.

It has been a year and half since McKayla died just four months before she was set to graduate high school.

Her friends and family gathered this weekend to keep the music playing in her memory.

The first McKayla’s Musical Moments festival at the Andreas Sporting Club featured six bands and solo acts who donated their time and talent to remember McKayla.

Since her passing, McKayla’s family has continued her generosity through a memorial scholarship. Nine Tamaqua alumni have helped pay for their college education with the award over the last two years.

Her parents’ high school classmates, some of whom had children in classes with McKayla, organized the festival to help keep the scholarship and her spirit alive.

“We were trying to come up with something to help with the scholarship, and something that really embodied what she thought and did,” said Kate Zukovich, who headed the committee to organize the festival.

The bands and musicians: Sean McGeehan, Ricky and the Ricardos, Slade Heller, Bad Maggie, 8:17 and Guilty By Choice, all played for no compensation to help the cause. DJ Ann Marie Calabrese did the same.

Bernie Alonge of Guilty by Choice never met McKayla, but her memory helped inspire him and his bandmates to end a five-year hiatus to play the closing slot.

Dylan Smarr of Bad Maggie said it was important to give back and support a good cause.

Zukovich said it wasn’t hard to get local businesses to support an event in McKayla’s memory. She left an impact on people who were decades older than her.

Whether it was selling Girl Scout Cookies or volunteering to support the American Cancer Society, McKayla was fearless and giving.

“She could walk up to anybody and be their friend in 10 minutes — best friend in 10 minutes, and she’d know their life story in 15,” Zukovich said.

McKayla’s random acts of kindness were legendary. Her maternal grandfather Dave Schock says that to this day she constantly inspires him to give back to others.

Her mantra was “She believed she could so she did.” That message, and the image of a yellow Beetle, was everywhere at the festival.

McKayla’s mother, Lauren Wall, credited Zukovich and their high school classmate Tommy Slane of Tuscarora Fire Co. for leading the effort to organize an event, and they hope to make it an annual occurrence.

Zukovich’s Farm Market, DiMaggio’s and Luigi’s, Rough Cut BBQ, Cargill, Gimbel Farms, Koch’s Turkey Farm, Heisler’s Dairy Bar, Shartzer’s, Herr’s, Wise, Miller’s, Caputo’s, Pepsi and Coca-Cola all donated something to help make the event happen.

“All the food was donated by local businesses and local people. It was more a question of ‘what do you need’ — we heard that so much,” Zukovich said.

McKayla’s paternal grandmother, Joan Wall, said it was a nice way to remember her granddaughter.

“She used to love to dance and sing. She was always at my house doing that,” she said.

Her friend Lauren Wandzilak misses McKayla every day. She said the scholarship continues McKayla’s legacy of kindness and helping other people.

“She was so kind — and the scholarship, it’s there for people who deserve it and want to help people as well. And she’s doing that with her scholarship,” she said.