Vandalism was opportunity to simply ‘show love’
Chicoans are a special breed. I am a third generation Chicoan, and pretty dang proud of it. Chicoans love well, are incredibly generous, and care deeply about the community that we call home.
Yes … a couple well-intentioned passionate individuals with megaphones on both sides of the isle are constantly screaming about how horrible things are and try to get us to forget how blessed we really are. I would like to share a story that I was fortunate enough to be able to play a small roll in that demonstrates why I love Chico.
It was early June 2020, and I was sitting in my office, which was temporarily in the conference room because my office was getting remodeled. The Covid 19 pandemic was in the middle of the first major lockdown and George Floyd had just been murdered a couple weeks earlier in Chicago. It seemed like the world was falling apart, so I did what any self-respecting millennial would do, and I logged on to Facebook. I had a notification that I had been tagged in a post about some vandalism that occurred at the Bethel AME Church here in Chico. The post just said, “I have a crazy idea.” I had seen the post a few days earlier and had the thought of doing something to help out but had not acted yet. We exchanged a few messages, and then my phone rang. My friend says, “I have a crazy idea”. He goes on to share his vision for restoring the steeple at the Bethel AME Church. As I heard him sharing, I had chills go down my neck and I literally started weeping right there in my office. I knew instantly this was something that I needed to do.
After sharing this Idea with the pastor of the
AME Church, and few other friends we quickly had a group of six Chicoans that were committed to leading this project. Over the following 16 months as we restored the church, we had two meetings every week planning this project. Over $125,000 in cash was donated by nearly 1000 individuals. We originally set out to just rebuild the outside of the steeple, but we ended up replacing the siding and windows on one side of the church, the roof, sidewalks, landscaping, repainting the entire inside and outside, and replacing all the interior flooring. Thousands of hours of labor were donated, and dozens of local businesses donated supplies and services. We estimated that over $500,000 in work was performed by our community.
Like any project we had a few bumps along the way. Right as the project was getting going some things were said that offended a few, and there were conversations about scrapping the whole project. Some organizations did not support the project which hurt some feelings. In additions, after removing the stucco from the steeple, the dry rot and termite damage was way worse than we ever imagined, and we thought for sure we were going to have to demolish the entire steeple structure. With every challenge came an opportunity for more Chicoans to step up and help out.
Acts of love like this happen in Chico every day. One person chose to vandalize the Bethel AME Church intending it to hurt them, but our community took that act and turned it into an opportunity to show them love and how glad we are they are part of our community. Some people look at things in the community as problems, but I like to see the problems as opportunities for Chicoans to rise above and do what we do so well, “show Love”
— Brandon Slater