VERO BEACH — “It’s hard to put your arms around a building, but we try,” said Rebecca Rickey, executive director of the landmark Heritage Center, addressing the crowd at Saturday night’s Heritage Rocks – A Salute to the Heritage Center.
Earlier in the day, things hadn’t gone quite as smoothly as organizers had anticipated, as they experienced timing delays and last minute participant cancellations.
But the crowd was clearly willing to just go with the flow. The high energy mood was due in large part to the rocking sounds of the fantastic Diddley Squat blues band from the East Texas area.
“Everything that could go wrong did,” said Rickey. “As a lot of you know, I’m a big fan of Theodore Roosevelt who said, ‘Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.’ We did, and it’s turned out to be a really great party.”
The annual fundraiser benefits Vero Heritage, Inc., which operates the Heritage Center, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and its adjacent Citrus Museum. Paris Christodoulides once again donated the use of his expansive Paris Air hanger for the event, chaired by Robert Votaw and his co-chair Cathie Callery.
This year’s theme celebrated the various “lives” of the landmark Heritage Center, from its start in 1935 as a community building through the war years as a servicemen’s center, two decades as a physical arts center, and its current status as the epicenter of downtown Vero Beach. Costumed guests got into the spirit of the various eras, dressed in plenty of military garb, poodle skirts and psychedelic apparel.
When asked about her favorite Heritage Center memory, Vero Beach native and Heritage Center board president Elizabeth Graves Bass said, “Probably taking ballroom dancing lessons from Mrs. Green; Hariot Green. Her husband Bernie would always dance with the girls when we didn’t have enough partners.”
“I was in the Vero Beach High School Band and we used to do a Christmas concert there every year,” recalled Milt Thomas. “That’s one of the things I remember whenever I go in there.”
“There are so many things; girl scouts, flower shows, my daughter doing Jiminy Cricket gymnastics,” said Judy Roberts, remembering all the activities with fondness. But she and Mary Jane Stewart both agreed their favorite memories involved Christmas at the Heritage Center.
“Santa would come in to the park on a sleigh, and we would each get an orange and a little stocking filled with candy,” said Roberts.
“And there was always a big Christmas Parade,” added Stewart. “The whole town was there.”
The Vero Beach Recreation Department’s Aerial Antics group was formed at the Heritage Center in 1974, during its physical arts center era, and in recognition, an enthusiastic gymnastics demonstration was performed by its current crop of agile gymnasts.
Band vocalist Sylvia Carroll told the crowd that when she mentioned she would be performing in Vero, her father said he knew it well. “When he was in the service, he received amphibious training here and spent time at the Heritage Center with the other servicemen.”
Continuing the tradition of supporting servicemen, the Heritage Center invites the Military Moms Prayer Group to take part in the fundraiser each year, and this time their table was manned by Lynn Marie Saint-Vincent, who spoke with pride of her two sons, currently serving in different branches of the military.
“One is in the Air Force and one is in the Navy,” said Saint-Vincent. “Austin, in the Navy, is serving out of Pearl Harbor; he’s a nuclear engineer on a submarine. The other one is Bryce, in geo-spatial intelligence. He hasn’t been stationed yet. When they travel they can’t tell me where they are.”
At events such as this the prayer group, which meets weekly at Christ Church, provides pre-addressed boxes for guests to take with them, fill up with goodies, and ship to the troops as a little remembrance of home.
