What has 2020 taught you?

We have all learned things this year. Mostly the hard way, unfortunately. 

Maybe for you, the pandemic hasn’t felt that bad. Maybe it has been more of an extended stay-cation and working from home feels right and good. Maybe you have lost a job, or lost a community you desperately needed. Maybe for you, the election results felt like bad news. Maybe for you, the election was good news and the president’s unwillingness to concede was the bad news. Maybe you were excited about a female vice president, and maybe you are worried about her stance on abortion. Maybe you have lost a loved one to the coronavirus, or maybe you’re skeptical that it’s really as bad as it seems. Maybe you have been to a virtual funeral, or a virtual wedding. Maybe you have mourned the loss of your usual busy life, or maybe you’ve embraced the slower pace of quarantine. Or maybe both. Or maybe all of these things. 

We want to know, what has 2020 taught you? 

This year, we ended up having to tear down the building we had fought so hard to restore and save. In this season, we believe there is something being built in all of us. Something being prepared, even as things crumble beneath the weight of time and weather and one disappointment after another. 

Sometimes you will have to tear some things down, maybe even the very things you have been fighting so hard to save. Your worldview, your reputation, your career, your plans, your identity. The systems we keep trying to fix, maybe they are just irrevocably broken: Healthcare and capitalism, prisons, media, education. These long days and months of exposure to the elements, they are exposing the cracks, uncovering the crumbling joists and uneven foundations. 

Once we tore down the building, we saw the cracked footprint beneath. And let me tell you how thankful I am that we didn’t try to build on top of that. Because it turns out that blank slates and firm foundations are occasionally what we need to build a stronger and more beautiful tomorrow. 

Projected building timeline:

  • January-February – Complete site work
  • March – Receive building permit and begin vertical construction 
  • September – Building complete, final inspections
  • October – Grand opening

Rebecca Stanley

Becca Stanley is co-founder and Executive Director of Blueprint 58. She has eleven years of experience working with youth, and a degree in child development from the University of Georgia. She and her husband Adam are high school sweethearts who lived in the suburbs together for four years before moving downtown to Adair Park. They have three children of their own (Jayci, Caden, and Isaiah), along with many youth who have found a safe place to land with their family throughout the years. She loves cheese dip and diet coke, reading and photography, and is particularly passionate about both community development and loving your neighbor.

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