Harrisons responds to vandalism with compassion

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This article was published 15/08/2022 (1503 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For Al Dawson, there’s no point crying over spilled milk… or broken glass in this case.

The owner of Harrisons Coffee is the kind of man quick to spot the silver lining in every cloud.

On July 15, a week before it opened, the glass door of Dawson’s newest café at 533 Broadway was smashed in an apparently random act of vandalism.

After filing a police report, Dawson enlisted the help of artist Joseph Pilapil of the Travelling Sign Painters to paint the café’s temporary plywood door.

The duo is now auctioning the artwork online to raise funds for CancerCare Manitoba.

“We knew we had to do something other than just leave it (the temporary door) as wood. Joseph was painting for us in the café anyway and I asked him if he wanted to paint the door and auction it, and he said yes.”

Pilapil was given free rein over the project and came up with three words to paint on the door: love, kindness, gratitude.

“He just let me do my thing,” Pilapil says. “The door is a lettering-based piece based on my style and I selected a colour palette. It’s what I like doing the most. It took me a couple of hours to create.”

“Those words resonate with the manifesto of our organization,” Dawson continues.

“As negative as what happened is, it’s a verification that people are hurting right now. We knew there were people who were in trouble downtown, but it’s not changed anything for us. The way I look it, the person who did this was in a lot of pain. They don’t have the incentives or skills or ability to deal with it, so they took it out on a random act. Of course I was angry when I saw it but really I feel bad for the person that did this.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Pilapil.

“When something like that happens, it’s hard for the business and it’s hard for people, but the individual who did this was probably going through something rough,” he says.

“One of my goals is to give back to the community and Al came up with this idea to auction off this plywood door and raise money for charity. I hope people like the artwork and are willing to place bids on the piece so we can raise funds for charity.“

The online auction is taking place on Instagram where bidders are invited to send in their bids to @harrisonscoffeeco or @thetravellingsignpainters via direct message.

The winning bidder will be asked to make the donation directly to CancerCare Manitoba before they are able to claim the artwork.

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca