Thousands of Dollars Donated for Church Security Cameras

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Erik Rosengarten is a local artist who saw the hateful words that vandals spraypainted onto the rainbow door of Wedgewood Church. “And I was like Nope. That’s literally what I said. Nope. Went to Lowe’s picked up some pray paint,” he says.”

He’s been here, off and on, since Wednesday, working to get rid of the profane graffiti. He says, “I’m tired of people just being jerks.”

So many of us are.

The misspelled monstrosity is the seventh time the church has been vandalized in the past few years. Its co-pastor says people often ask: why don’t you have security cameras? “The easy answer is we just couldn’t afford it,” says Rev. Dr. Chris Ayers.

But now, thanks to donations raised in a matter of hours, the church has thousands of dollars (more than $4,000 at last check) to spend on new paint, and surveillance cameras. Ayers says, “These are my friends and I want people to cut it out.”

Ayers says there are people who travel for hours to walk through the rainbow painted doors of this house of worship. For some, it is the only place they can be out, and be themselves. He says, “There is a heavy cost to what people to do to the LGBT community.”

A formal painting party is still planned for this weekend, to add more design to the rainbow front doors. Also: Pastor Ayers says Aveda at SouthPark is donating proceeds from facials and massages to Wedgewood Church.