Family, Community Celebrated at Van Hornesville Benefit Concert

By ERIC SANTOMAURO-STENZELVAN HORNESVILLE

An unassuming white church has for generations been a center of community life for the small, forest-nestled hamlet of Van Hornesville. With a benefit concert bringing together some of those Van Hornesville generations this past Sunday, April 26, the Van Hornesville Community Corporation sought to fund the Millpond Community Center’s next chapter.

Bringing together four descendants of a 19th-century local boy made international industrialist, businessman, and lawyer, Owen D. Young, “Relative Harmony” had around 30 community members snapping and clapping to dynamic sets incorporating country, jazz, and blues music. Hopes of far-flung journeys and potential sweeties rang off the high ceiling, illuminated by stained windows in the late afternoon light.

“I have done benefit concerts in my home state of Vermont in the past and helped other organizations raise money,” said jazz vocalist-percussionist and VHCC member Suzannah Young Ciernia. “And I thought, well, heck, why don’t I do this here in Van Hornesville?”