Open Gallery & Home Destroyed

We literally had our lively hood and all of our years of hard work taken from us in mere matter of minutes, all due to drunk driving. We all survived when the two cars missed our family by inches. A white BMW was racing another car down 7th street possibly under the influence of alcohol (waiting on police to confirm) when he clipped the back of a 4Runner sending them both flying up the curb straight through into our loft and gallery. Both cars ended up in our loft just inches from us. The 4runner plowed through the gallery into the dividing wall landing in our bedroom. The other car went straight into the front of our loft where my son’s room was. He was somehow shoved into a corner and unharmed. I climbed over all the rubble yelling for him to finally see his eyes open staring at me. He’s 13 years old and shouldn’t have to go through something this traumatic, bc someone wanted to race down 7th st. We lost artwork for the artists, many of our digital devices which we use daily for work, our cat is currently missing, many many personal belonging destroyed, a large portion of our entire belongings are gone. We’re still a very new business and all of our funds and then some were completely invested in this community space. We don’t have an immediate way to work since our business is now destroyed. Luckily I pulled my son out of the rubble completely unharmed and am beyond grateful for his health and ours. We are completely shattered and don’t know how to move forward. We were doing everything in our power to make Long Beach and our local community a place for thriving art and love. Sadly this has all been snatched from us. Our business insurance was recently canceled bc the company pulled out of California as have many other insurance companies have recently done as well, which no one knows why this is happening. We’re asking for any help possible to move our family somewhere safe, to help us repay artists who lost their work, to purchase new equipment for work, and to sustain us for a bit while we pick up the pieces and pivot into figuring out how to get our livelihood back. Everything helps so much. We love you all so much and are happy to be alive and we thank you in advance for all of your support.

Sincerely,

Liz, Artos & Dylan.

I (Vanessa) have increased the go fund me to 150,000. This is will help get the building back to be better than ever and provide the resources and equipment needed to get Creative Hours also know as Open Gallery to its truest vision of use. This will also help with the artists that lost their art that was destroyed by the crash, this will also allow the family a safe place to call home that isn’t attached to the gallery + some time without having to work and to focus on healing and resting because they deserve a long break before they can open the doors again. Together.. si se puede.