Dozens of volunteers and an entrepreneur have teamed up to save the statue of the UK’s Kindest Man from being melted down to save space.
In 2023, GNN reported on the UK’s kindest man receiving a bronze statue of himself in honor of his work performing a good deed every day for 3 years during all the stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Believing that kindness was “his superpower,” Sebbie Hall from Lichfield was emblazoned striking a Superman pose with a colorful cape, and stood alongside other statues of national icons like Captain Cook and Winston Churchill near Tower Bridge in London.
Sebbie Hall continued his daily kind acts after the UK became one of the earliest countries in Europe to abandon its COVID protocols, working through the Sebbie Hall Kindness Foundation, run by his mother Ashley since Sebbie has a rare chromosomal condition that left him with physical and speech difficulties.
After the exhibition period of the statute finished in London, it was moved to a temporary home at The Hub, an art center in Hall’s hometown of Lichfield. Before a future home could be identified, however, the center lost the luxury of allowing it to stay in storage, and the statue risked being melted down and recycled.
Oliver Chapman, founder of supply chain procurement company OCI Group and friend of the Sebbie charity, stepped in to help, offering to pay for a storage space while finding a permanent indoor home for the piece.
When the couriers arrived to remove the statue from The Hub, they found it was impossible to move the over 240-pound honor.
“The courier guys just couldn’t get the statue out, and it looked like they would have to go without it, leaving it with an uncertain fate, particularly as the statue needs to be situated indoors,” Ashley told the Metro. “But suddenly, I saw people from the market piling over, offering to help move it, which was incredible.”
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The Metro reports that the local marketplace which was running that morning got wind of what was happening in town, and over a dozen of them arrived to help move the statue.
“Sebbie’s statue was finally able to leave the building! It was an incredible act of kindness from the people of Lichfield, which is what the Sebbie Hall Kindness Foundation is all about,” Ashley said.
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“Sebbie was overjoyed and I am so grateful to the people of Lichfield and Oliver Chapman for arranging it to be moved in the nick of time.”
Chapman has been in contact with a variety of companies that manage office units, and another that manages a train station, to see who in Lichfield will have the honor to host the statue of the beloved local hero.
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