GIG HARBOR, Wash. — The community rallied behind the Key Center Ward of the Tacoma Washington Stake here after vandals smashed their way into the meetinghouse late Jan. 20 or early Jan. 21, leaving in their path some $40,000 to $50,000 in damages.
"We've had a number of calls from people [in the community]," said Bishop Robert C. Barrett. "I've had one of the local pastors call. He asked me if they could help in any way. They had people in their congregation who were desirous of helping either with money or time. He expressed his concern and said all the LDS people he knew were good people and he knew we had a good organization. We've had individual calls."
Bishop Barrett said during a telephone interview that he arrived at 7:45 a.m. that Sunday morning to open the building for meetings and discovered the destruction. "As I went into the main foyer, there was water on the floor. I ran into the [men's] bathroom; all the toilets were smashed. I shut the water off, but I could still hear water. I went to the women's restroom and those were smashed, too."
The vandals did not limit their rampage. They pulled off prints and paintings from the walls, discharged fire extinguishers, smashed the organ keys and ripped off the top of the grand piano and destroyed the inner workings. The vandals even got up on the roof and tore off roofing and stuffed it down heating and ventilation vents. The meetinghouse library was ransacked.
"It was one of those things; it was really sad," Bishop Barrett said. "After the police released [the building], we got on the phone. We had an ox-in-the-mire party. We probably had 75 people and went at it," and the experience proved therapeutic for the saddened ward members, he said.
"It was a good healing for our ward. We worked together and everybody had a good attitude. It felt good to go to bed that night and feel that we had restored the Lord's house as well as we could."