Over 11,000 small donors have managed to raise £245,000 ($270,000) to repair a library in Liverpool that was set partially ablaze during a spate of violent acts of disorder that took place in England and Belfast last week.
Called Spellow Hub, the library had recently been transformed into a community space with job training and outreach activities for some of the most disadvantaged parts of Liverpool, but the rioting left the whole of the ground floor badly burned.
“I always loved to read as a child and seeing a library and community space destroyed broke my heart,” the fundraiser’s organizer, 27-year-old Alex McCormick told the Guardian. “I felt helpless and wanted to do something to help and thought fundraising would be a nice way to replace some of the books lost in the fire.”
McCormick described herself as being “overwhelmed with the response and the sense of community,” and by the time she had spoken with the British paper the fundraiser already accumulated £120,000.
An update posted on Monday announced that work had already started to restore the Spellow Hub to its former joy.
The riots were described as the worst instances of their kind in 13 years. The deaths of three young girls and the injury of 10 others when an assailant attacked a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class shook the nation.
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Two false claims: first that the killer was on an MI6 watchlist, and the second—that he was a Muslim asylum seeker, quickly flooded social media in the wake of the stabbings. He was actually born to Rwandan parents in Cardiff.
With immigration long being a contentious political issue, it triggered a wave of destructive vandalism against Muslim neighborhoods.
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However, communities have largely rallied together, including in Southport where the stabbing occurred, when after a mosque was vandalized in the wake of the attack, local bricklaying companies rushed to rebuild the exterior wall in scorching temperatures.
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