Hub and spoke. Audio Collective.

This is Rumblestrip. I'm Erica Heilman.

She started singing and people, you know, sort of that quiet singing, like when you're at church or whatever, and people are just kind of singing, was what was happening at first.

And I was looking all around.

And it wasn't very long where people started really singing, like everybody.

Like I remember Butch, looking over at Butch and Butch singing and Finn's baseball coach

Merko singing and like the kids singing.

She like pulled that out of people, like, made people not afraid to be singing and to gather closer to the fire.

That's Tara Reese.

Six years ago, her son, Finn Rooney, killed himself in the fire. That's Tara Reese. Six years ago, her son, Finn Rooney, killed himself in their home in Walden, Vermont. A couple days later, the community held a bonfire for Finn in the parking lot of Hazen Union High School in Hardwick.

Hundreds of people came.

From all over, some came on snowmobiles.

Tom Gilbert, who organized the bonfire,

asked his friend Heidi Wilson to write a song for the occasion,

something they could all sing together.

Heidi is from Plainfield, which is right down the road from Hardwick,

and she writes songs for people to sing together

for all sorts of occasions, birthdays, rallies.

She wrote a song after the last big flood in Plainfield Village.

So six years ago, she wrote a song for this gathering in Hardwick.

It was called Hold On.

She made sure it was a song everyone could sing, and they did.

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