The Justice LUG
Posted by MeganL,
Today, for Valentine’s Day, I’d like to share a story.
Of an injustice done.
Of a group of people gathering for a common good, righting the wrong, and then going back to their routines like nothing happened, leaving things just a little better.
That shows the best of what the AFOL community can be.
Read on to learn more….
Many of you in the U.S. and farther afield saw the news about what happened to an art teacher’s LEGO collection in San Clemente, California, located between Los Angeles and San Diego. For those who don’t click the link, Mrs. Bassett has worked at Concordia Elementary for many years as the art teacher. Over the course of the last 20 years she had donated many LEGO sets to the school’s library; many of them overflow from her children’s collection. Over the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday at the end of November, vandals broke into the school and smashed all the the completed sets. Some pieces had been shattered from the force of impact.
There was justifiable outrage on the part of the community. There were a lot of people who wanted to help but weren’t sure how.
Enter the AFOLs.
Bruce Heller, member of LUGOLA, sent out a plea to fellow members:
"If there was ever a time when our LUGs were being called into action for a higher purpose…
If there was ever a time where we could look up into the sky and see the Brick Signal illuminating the night sky, calling out for help... for justice…
That time is now. Let’s figure out what we as a LUG can do, and let’s make it happen."
Figure it out they did.
One of our heroes, Paul Lee, stepped forward to lead the effort. Paul corralled all the forces wanting to help into one focused effort - no small task! In addition, Paul established communication with the school, most importantly Concordia Elementary's principal, Rob McKane. Over the course of several days they established where, when, by whom and how the sets could be rebuilt.
That's how, on two successive weekends (four days!) over the course of the holiday season, a team of AFOLs and other volunteers came together to rebuild the broken sets. Even though the holiday season is a busy time of year for most of us, Paul says that there were no problems getting volunteers, as everyone wanted to help. No less than five different LUGs answered the call from Bruce's original email. Over the course of those four building days, there was representation from LUGOLA, OCLUG, SanDLUG, Long Beach LUG, and TIELUG.
It was estimated that Mrs. Bassett had over 100 sets in the library, most of which got smashed. Now, imagine all those pieces…with no way of determining which pieces belong to which sets….and not really having a complete inventory of what sets were in the library. As a result the intrepid team of AFOLS faced scenes like this:
There were teams of builders and teams of sorters. It looks like some advent calendar trays were put to good use in this picture!
Fortunately, Mrs. Bassett had the instructions for many of the sets. However, that wasn't always the case so the AFOLs had to look up digital instructions for other sets.
Replacing the broken parts didn't present much of an issue - not when you have a team of AFOLs! Many brought pieces in from their own collections to supplement the parts that had been broken. For those who are curious, many of those pieces were reddish brown pieces.
Even with all that building, all the sets weren't rebuilt during those weekends - some AFOLS (including Paul) took sets home to complete the building process. Here's some of the Justice LUG with the results from one day's worth of building.
Paul notes that the entire effort would not have been possible without the help of Rob McKane, the principal of Concordia Elementary. Principal McKane took time out of his own holiday break to provide access to the school, made the school's computers available so digital instructions could be found, and even tried his hand at rebuilding the Death Star.
As you might have noticed in the pictures, most of the affected sets were Star Wars sets. Mrs. Bassett is a huge Star Wars fan. The 501st Legion Star Wars Cosplay community was one of the groups who noticed this and reached out to Paul; ultimately helping with the building and providing other support, as I'll describe below.
There was a tremendous outpouring of support from the community to rebuild Mrs. Bassett's collection. A number of sets were donated to the school, including a USC Millenium Falcon donated by the local Goodwill that was delivered to Mrs. Bassett (fully built) shortly before Christmas.
According to Bruce, as they were getting ready to leave the first day, Principal McKane asked:
“What am I going to do if we need to find you again? Do you have like a Bat Signal or something?”
No, came the reply…..we’ve got the Brick Signal. We're the Justice LUG!
It turns out that Paul and another AFOL, Robert Frost, had been talking about forming a Justice LUG for some time, with the purpose of organizing AFOLs and to help people. It may become official after this!
Paul and the AFOL team had a couple more surprises for Mrs. Bassett.
Every Friday, Concordia Elementary holds a flag ceremony. In early January, the flag ceremony had a few extra guests - two stormtroopers, Boba Fett and old Luke - from the 501st Legion, much to everyone's delight. Additionally, Paul and Jason Petrasich, the OCLUG Ambassador, had made arrangements with LEGO so Mrs. Bassett could have her very own Black LEGO VIP card. The real one couldn't make it to California in time, so thanks to Paul, an oversized one was provided to Mrs. Bassett.
I can't imagine a more deserving Star Wars Fan.
A tremendous effort and remarkable results, all thanks to a dedicated team of AFOLs demonstrating the "heart" of the community. What a better story to share on Valentine's Day?
Many thanks to Paul Lee and Bruce Heller for their assistance in answering all of my questions in telling this story.
Have you heard of a team of AFOLs doing something Justice LUG worthy? Contact me through the webpage and I'll feature it here on Brickset.
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38 comments on this article
A heartwarming storing, thanks for sharing!
What a story! Any LEGO community is a strong one! Thanks for sharing.
Reddish Brown pieces are the most fragile bricks there are. Amazing story though, how do you join a Lug?
Vandals gotta start somewhere, I guess.
Thank you @MeganL and Brickset for this phenomenal article! The pictures alone tell a great story. It was well written and did a great job of focusing on the positive aspects of the whole story, while still acknowledging the more unfortunate parts. Thanks again.
Awesome!
Awesome story. I know both Paul and Bruce and it would be hard to find two nicer guys. Feel sad that I hadn't been aware of this tale until now.
Loved that this story ended well.
Fantastic! Thanks for relating the story, Megan.
Lego fans are incredible.
Awesome story. I'm not crying...you are. ;)
Neat story, thanks!
(To be honest, I'm sort of surprised the criminals smashed them instead of stealing them though...)
Excellent feel-good story. There's some great people out there in the world and this highlights just a few - kudos to all involved. Thanks for the read Megan.
Thank you for sharing that, MeganL. Many times we want to help others but don't know what to do. This is a not just a feel good story, but an excellent example of people partnering together to say that we can help and following up their words with action.
That is such a nice story. Everything truly is awesome •)
I mean let's be honest, this is one act of charity we'd all be fighting to perform ;)
Wow, just wow, thats why lego fans are the best. Did they apprehend the vandals?
That's my LUG! Those are my people! Go Justice LUG!
Simply awesome, kudos! I'm moving to a new city soon and this made me interested in joining a LUG!
brought tears to my eyes, what a wonderful story! thanks so much for sharing!
AMAZING!!!!
What an awesome story, thanks for sharing.
So awesome! Incredible that they got organized and rebuilt all those sets so quickly.
Thx for sharing a lovely story.
Thanks for sharing such an uplifting story and well done to all of the participating heroes!
It's beautiful to see so many people how where not AFOL's come to the rescue also, and what a treat for the children to have members of the 501st there for a visit. This really shows not just the goodness of the LUG and Lego community, but the goodness of decent people who saw a wrong and wanted to help right it. Fantastic story of hope, thanks for bring it to us Megan :)
Very heart warming story, thanks for sharing Megan.
Really happy to see everyone pitching in to help; very cool of my comrades in the 501st to lend a hand, too!
I've also had a good bunch of Reddish Brown pieces crack. They're the only ones I've cracked actually, none of them from Star Wars sets.
This is the meanest, most nonsensical act of vandalism I've read about. Good to see it's all righted and hope they get what they deserve. I also hope they plan on putting the sets somewhere safer, so it won't happen again anytime soon...
Great effort by some very giving people!
Thanks for sharing all about it.
What an awesome effort from the community, and what an awesome thing for the LUG members to be a part of as well - bet they had a pretty cool time on that project.
@Lyonel McBaseplate-11:
It happens. It doesn't always get an article written about it, though. Our LUG did a display a couple years ago, and after the site shut down for the first day, someone slipped under the tent where the layout was located and tipped all the tables over. At an outdoor show, which I believe was on grass. I can't remember why I wasn't able to participate in that one, but that's one of the few times I've actually been thankful that I missed out on one of our displays. And the handful of members who did participate didn't get an army of AFOLs with instructions to help put it all back together, though the pieces may have suffered less damage.
Here's an idea: maybe the cops in San Clemente could do their jobs and catch the lowlifes who did this so that it doesn't happen again.
What a story! Thanks for sharing.
How to find a LUG:
https://lan.lego.com/clubs/overview/
Splendid bunch of people.
all i can say is thanks for sharing... crying to much. great job by all that helped.
"This is clearly a case of good versus evil, and make no mistake about it -- good will prevail." - George W. Bush
Already shared this story of the HEROES of the LA region AFOL!!! On my Facebook page.
Well done to all those involved, great effort. As a parent in the UK it seems that schools in the US only get a mention in international news reports for all the wrong reasons, so it's easy to forget about all the Mrs. Bassetts and Mr. McKanes out there ...
I like this sort of different article on the website! Great article, great read.