Thousands of people donated over $178,000 to a fundraising campaign to restore the Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville, Miss. after it was vandalized with the words "Vote Trump" and set on fire on Tuesday, ABC News reports.
The church pastor, Charolyn Hudson, told reporters that church attendees' "hearts are broken," but that they were praying that "God would allow us to build another sanctuary in that same place."
On Thursday afternoon, a GoFundMe campaign started Wednesday reached $178,000, well over the $10,000 goal, by 5,100 donors.
"I've truly been blown away," the campaign’s organizer, Blair Reeves, said to ABC News. "Donations are coming in from all over the country."
Reeves, a New Yorker who has no connection with the church, felt "compelled" to start the campaign to provide the same support that a North Carolina GOP field office that was recently firebombed received.
"The animus of this election cycle combined with the potent racial history of burning black churches as a political symbol makes this event something we must not ignore," he wrote in the campaign's description. "Only two weeks ago, the internet came together to help repair a North Carolina GOP field office that had been burned by thugs. Justice demands we do the same now."
Earlier Thursday Reeves announced on Twitter that Bishop Clarence Green of the church accepted the funds raised by the campaign.
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