Richmond community, VCU respond to local elementary school fire

Hollyann Purvis, Copy Editor

Local businesses and community members have banded together to aid William Fox Elementary School after a fire closed the school indefinitely on Friday, Feb. 11.

Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras wrote about the impact of the fire in the RPS daily newsletter the following afternoon. 

“I’m terribly saddened to share that a fire caused catastrophic damage to Fox Elementary School last night. Fortunately, no one was injured,” Kamras said. “Nonetheless, as you can surely imagine, the Fox community is reeling this morning.”

Fire crews responded to a three-alarm fire at approximately 10:35 p.m. Crews encountered “heavy” smoke and flames from the fire that was “quickly spreading” across the top of the school, according to the Richmond Fire Department. The fire was not contained until 2:44 a.m. and caused extensive damage to the structure of the 110-year-old building.

Paula Demmert, former VCU employee, is approaching her fourth year of owning Scoop, an ice cream shop located on Strawberry Street. Just a block from Fox Elementary, Scoop was one of the first businesses to organize fundraising for the school after the fire.

“I just started looking at the news and finding out how bad it [the fire] was, and so the first thing I thought is, ‘Well, we need to do a fundraiser,’” Demmert said. “It was kind of a no-brainer.”

Scoop raised over $2,000 for the school, the highest-grossing day in sales that the shop has seen since opening in 2018. The proceeds all went to Fox Elementary, according to Demmert.

“A lot of times, fundraisers will make money for us as well because even though we give away a percentage, we’ll get a lot of extra traffic. But this time, I wanted to make sure it all went to the school, because, you know, it’s so devastating,” Demmert said. 

The VCU men’s basketball team also created an opportunity for the community to donate at the Capital City Classic on Feb. 18. The Rams played against the Richmond Spiders, and fans were encouraged to bring school supplies to “replace supplies lost” in the fire at Fox Elementary, according to VCU Athletics.

VCU creative advertising alumna Shae McGrath joined other local business owners in chalking the sidewalks surrounding Fox Elementary the morning after the fire. 

“I got out of bed and rushed out of the house grabbing my girls’ sidewalk chalk pieces from the porch,” McGrath stated in an email. “We showed up at 6:45 a.m. to fire crews covering the block and sleep deprived neighbors stumbling around trying to make sense of it all.” 

McGrath, a former RPS teacher, is also the founder of “Sustaining our Souls,” an organization focused on creating a space for burnt-out teachers to speak out and receive support, according to McGrath. Along with other individuals in the community, Sustaining our Souls has played a part in raising hundreds of dollars for teachers at Fox Elementary. 

Founder of “Gals for a Cause” and Director of Programs and Outreach at Cultureworks Erin Frye was also among members of the community who organized donations for teachers at the school. 

Gals for a Cause is a grassroots organization for female-identifying people that meet monthly to learn about a new cause. This group sparked the idea of “Notes of Hope,” which was originally intended to gather gifts for teachers on Valentine’s Day, according to Frye.

“But then Friday, the fire happened, so then it was kind of like, ‘Well, obviously, from here we’re going to just, you know, switch gears,’” Frye said.

A portion of the donations were given to educators at Fox Elementary, and the remaining donations went to other Richmond city schools, according to Frye. 

“It’s easy to look at it and go, ‘This is too much, I’m just not going to do anything,’ and I would just challenge or ask folks to think differently,” Frye said. “Like, we can all do something, and that something turns into something much bigger when we collect and work together as a community.”

VCU music education alumna Kristin Seward joined Frye and McGrath the morning after the fire to write encouraging messages in chalk on the sidewalks surrounding the school. Seward is also the co-owner of local “compassion-based” photography business “Lens of Hope.” Compassion photography is a form of photojournalism that captures “emotionally nuanced and complex moments” like the ones at Fox Elementary, according to Seward. 

“It just felt natural to sort of just show up. I think when people don’t know what else to do, you just go,” Seward said. 

Many other businesses have also started fundraising campaigns, such as local restaurants Joe’s Inn and Shyndigz.

Superintendent Kamras extended his gratitude towards the Richmond community in another newsletter from Feb. 12.

“On behalf of RPS, I want to thank all of Richmond for the incredible outpouring of love and support we’ve received in response to the fire at Fox. We are truly blessed to have such a caring and compassionate village,” Kamras stated in the RPS newsletter.