An LGBTQ2S+ Pride centre in Vermont auctioned off the rock used to vandalize its building following a possible hate crime attack earlier this month. The rock sold for $600 in an online auction on Sunday, and the proceeds will benefit the organization’s programming and events.

The chunk of concrete was one of two objects hurled through the Pride Center of Vermont’s front glass door on April 26, according to Justin Marsh, director of development and communications. Although nothing was stolen and the Burlington-based nonprofit incurred minimal damage overall, Marsh said the experience was difficult for both its staff and the clients they serve after, saying it was “a really rough month for us in Vermont.”

“I’ve seen vandalism to our front door in my tenure at the Pride Center, but not to this level,” they tell Xtra, noting that the building was most recently targeted with alt-right propaganda in 2019. “We were able to scrape it off and move forward. This is a bit more intimidating and a bit more violent than we had been used to.”

Even before the attack, the Pride Center was already experiencing turmoil. After Fox News host Laura Ingraham featured an April 7 segment criticizing a series of online workshops hosted by the Burlington School District on trans inclusion, the organization began receiving a flurry of hate mail. Just five days later, a 29-year-old trans woman, Fern Feather, was found stabbed to death in nearby Morrisville, and mourners responded to her horrific murder with vigils in her memory.

Marsh said that it felt like there was “one unfortunate event after the other,” which eventually culminated in the attack on the Pride Center. Although security footage captured the incident, which took place around midnight, a suspect has yet to be identified.

The Pride Center decided to respond to the vandalism by adding the rock to its annual auction, which was already underway at the time. Held from April 1 to May 8, the organization’s community partners donated more than 110 items to be auctioned off, and this year’s fundraiser brought in $12,169 to benefit the Pride Center’s daily operations, according to Marsh.

“We’ve been getting hate mail, but we’ve also been getting a lot of love mail, too.”

The rock itself went for $600. The winning bidder was Michael DeSanto, owner of Phoenix Books in downtown Burlington. In a phone call, DeSanto says that he was inspired to bid on the rock after seeing a story about the auction in a local newspaper.

“You can’t read the news any day without finding some other unwarranted, unjustified attack on people for no reason that I can ever discern, other than some sort of horrible hatred,” he tells Xtra. “This was just an opportunity for me to do something that would put my name down as being opposed to those kinds of actions.”

DeSanto says that he’s not the most “eloquent spokesperson” to discuss the discrimination faced by marginalized LGBTQ2S+ groups but asserts that he’s “always been a believer of action over words.”

“There are right or wrong things in this world,” he adds. “Clearly throwing stones is wrong.”

The auction wasn’t the first time the Pride Center raffled off an item used to desecrate its building. After vandals threw bricks through its former community center in 2007, Michael Upton bought one of the clay projectiles for exactly the same sum: $600. On the Pride Center’s website, he said the purchase reflects his belief that the “best response to the intimidation and fear” that opponents of LGBTQ2S+ equality hope to create “is to overcome it with defiance and pride.”

Upton donated the brick to the Pride Center following the 2007 auction, and it currently sits in the building’s library. The brick will soon have some company after DeSanto elected to allow the Pride Center to keep the rock rather than putting it in his home.

Marsh says the donation is a testament to the “resilience” of Vermont’s LGBTQ2S+ community, but also the overwhelming amount of support the Pride Center has received. Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger issued a statement condemning the violence, and dozens of local religious leaders signed a letter decrying anti-LGBTQ2S+ hate. The Pride Center received a flurry of gift bags and care packages from the surrounding community, and good Samaritans even offered to help clean up the broken glass.

On the day that Marsh spoke to Xtra, the Pride Center’s staff found its front door plastered in rainbows to express support for the LGBTQ2S+ community. “The facade is covered in rainbow hearts,” Marsh says. “We’ve been getting hate mail, but we’ve also been getting a lot of love mail, too.”

As the Pride Center attempts to move forward from the vandalism, Marsh adds that the incident is a reminder that its work is not finished.

“I’ve been with the organization for almost five years,” they say. “I just recently was thinking: What is the purpose of our organization? Do we serve a purpose right now? Haven’t we made enough progress? Are we good? This is a really good reminder that we are still needed in this community. Even though Vermont is seen as a state where this doesn’t happen, clearly it still does. We’re not exempt from that hate.”