A statue of the ‘UK’s Kindest Person’ has been saved from destruction after townsfolk rallied at the very last minute to stop it from being melted down and recycled.
Sebbie Hall was honoured with a life-sized statue of himself wearing a cape in a heroic-looking stance last year after he carried out an act of kindness every day during the Covid pandemic – and has continued to do so every for the last four years.
The 21-year-old, who believes his kindness is his ‘superpower’, has a rare chromosome anomaly and suffers from physical and communication difficulties. His mum, Ashley, runs the Sebbie Hall Kindness Foundation, which has raised more than £100,000 for disadvantaged people in Staffordshire.
The statue was unveiled at Tower Hill in London last November before being moved to a temporary home at The Hub, an art centre in Lichfield, Sebbie’s home town.
However, the new venue no longer had the space to hold it, and the statue risked being melted down and ‘recycled’.
This led entrepreneur Oliver Chapman, founder of supply chain procurement company OCI Group and friend of the Sebbie charity, to immediately front a nationwide campaign to find the statue a new permanent home.
Mr Chapman arranged for the statue to be temporarily transported to a storage site from The Hub this week, but two men from a courier company could not move the 6ft, 120kg statue by themselves and had no choice but to leave the site.
That was until the good people of Lichfield got wind of what was happening, with dozens of individuals from the town’s local market coming over to help lift the statue onto the transit van and away.
Ashley said: ‘The courier guys just couldn’t get the statue out, and it looked like they would have to go without it, leaving it with an uncertain fate, particularly as the statue needs to be situated indoors. But suddenly, I saw people from the market piling over, offering to help move it, which was incredible.
‘Sebbie’s statue was finally able to leave the building! It was an incredible act of kindness from the people of Lichfield, which is what the Sebbie Hall Kindness Foundation is all about. Sebbie was overjoyed and I am so grateful to the people of Lichfield and Oliver Chapman for arranging it to be moved in the nick of time.’
Several organisations, including a train station and office space solutions provider, have offered to house the Sebbie statue but both were unable to house the statue in an indoor setting.
Mr Chapman said: ‘It was heartwarming to hear how the people of Lichfield pulled together to save the Sebbie statue, which means so much to Sebbie and his family. The statue acts as a beacon of hope for all disabled young people worldwide and needs to be preserved.
‘We’ve had genuine enquiries from organisations looking to help, but, for now, the search for a new permanent home for the statue continues. We sincerely hope this will be possible.’
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