WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) – When some of DC’s protests turned violent a little more than a week ago, many business owners boarded up their shops to protect them from property damage. But now that the plywood is starting to come down, the question becomes – what do you do with it?
One business owner has an idea he’s calling DC Wood for Good. It was first reported on the website PoPville.
“If someone can walk by a planter and it has some remnants of a heart or Black Lives Matter or something, and we remind ourselves of how important equality is, I mean that’s a great thing,” said Graham King, who owns Urban Athletic Club in Shaw.
Basically King – along with Shaw Main Streets – is asking business owners to donate their plywood so that artists and other creative-types can turn it into something positive for the community.
The wood can be both dropped-off and picked-up at Parcel 42, located near the Shaw Metro station, starting Thursday morning. An Eventbrite page has been created so people can schedule times to swing by.
The hope is that artists do some good with their work. Shaw Main Streets plans to auction off some of the finished products and give the proceeds to local movements that benefit equality. They also plan to share a lot of the work during Art All Night, and annual art festival that takes place throughout DC.
“We were out of control for two days and after that it was so peaceful,” King said. “So let’s take that same energy we have from being peaceful and make good things out of it.”