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The Springfield community rallied this week to support a neighborhood center damaged by vandals who spray-painted the historic building with phallic symbols, scribbling and racial slurs.
Mark Dixon, executive director of the Bartley-Decatur Neighborhood Center, said the all-volunteer board has been overwhelmed by the volume of supportive messages, offers of help, and donations. At this point, counting a grant that we re going to be receiving by way of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, we re right around $11,000, he said, noting the CFO grant is for $5,000. That was raised in, like, a day and a half.
Dixon said the center has received donations, ranging from $5 to $500, from at least 100 individuals or families. There has been an outpouring from the community, at large, that has just been amazing.
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The Bartley-Decatur Neighborhood Center, a gathering place for many diverse groups in a historic part of Springfield, was vandalized with racial slurs and phallic symbols spray-painted in neon colors.
Mark Dixon, the longtime director, said the damage was reported early Wednesday by one passerby after another. I was fighting back tears still am, he said.
Dixon said while the vandal, or vandals, failed to get inside, the brick façade of the two-story building and the ornate sign were not spared. Sometime last night or very early this morning, they decided to tag us up, Dixon said Wednesday. They have spray-painted, in fluorescent paint, both levels of the building and our sign out front including the n-word.