Don Brown, of Highgate Springs, and Ellie Bliss, of Middlebury, were honored by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra during the VSO Association’s Annual Meeting Wednesday night (September 21, 2011) at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe. Brown and Bliss were awarded the VSO Volunteer of the Year Award.
Brown and Bliss have been volunteering on the VSO Summer Festival Tour for the past seven years. They are among the six to sixty volunteers to serve each night at five or six venues across the state every year. The couple first impressed VSO volunteer coordinators when they signed up to help at every concert where volunteers were required, even at three concerts where VSO volunteers weren't needed. The following year, Brown and Bliss agreed to join the VSO's traveling caravan for the complete summer tour, filling the position of volunteer concessionaires. The retired couple criss-crossed the state for the next five years, attending every concert and quickly becoming a staple of the VSO summer tour family.
“This wonderful couple has spent summer after summer driving from Manchester to Grafton to Shelburne to Quechee to Randolph and beyond,” says VSO executive director Alan Jordan. “We're pretty sure they had to buy a dresser to store all the VSO apparel they have acquired over the years,” he says. “And we are so very grateful for their years of commitment to the VSO!”
