David Bayode and his two boys, Dontydrick and Devaris, lost their wife and mother, Jennifer, their Crescent Lane home and trucks from a 15-year old ice cream business. All suffered from serious injuries.
In the tornado’s immediate aftermath, Amy Echols met with the Bayode family and felt compelled to put forth all her heart, effort and abilities as a local artist and marketing director in support of their recovery.
Echols’ trainer, a basketball coach at Davis-Emerson Middle School, recalled his visit to the hospital on April 27 where he could barely recognize 15-year old Dontydrick Hughes who was being treated for cuts. Echols felt for the young boy and through the middle school, was able to reach out to the boy’s grandmother.
Echols brought food and condolences for two weeks to the two-bedroom apartment where Dontydrick and his 8-year old brother Devaris were staying with their grandmother and six other residents. On the third week Echols met the boy’s hospitalized father, David Bayode. She expressed to him her wish to do all she could to help the family.
Bayode remembered the pain he felt and the smile Echols managed to put on his face as she burst into his room proclaiming herself as “some crazy white women.”
He soon realized her good intentions and the empathy she offered for him and his children.
“She’s a nice, nice, woman, and she’s not crazy,” Bayode said. “She really cared about us.”
Following that visit, Echols decided to sell her paintings at half-price and donate the proceeds to the family. At her husband’s suggestion, she reached out to the local arts community through social media and her personal contacts to create the One Family: One Night Only benefit last June. Seventy-five donated pieces from 55 artists filled Harrison Gallery as they raised $20,000 over the course of a week. The donation went to Dontydrick and Devaris as a $10,000 college fund for each.
“The artists just blew me away,” Echols said. “They are asked so many times to donate a piece of artwork for all these different art nights and auctions people have.”
Although impressed with the outpouring of support for her event from both artists and buyers, Echols said that it was really just another case of “artists being artists” and believes artists will continue being a critical piece to the revival of the Tuscaloosa community.
“Artists are always responding to community needs; they enhance the quality of life, be it culturally or financially,” she said. “I think that it’s in their nature to have sensitivity to what’s going on around them.”
Her relationship with family didn’t end there; Echols said she frequently checks in with the recovering family and every month or so takes the boys out for lunch, shopping and most recently, the Blue Angels air show at the end of March. She said she believes they will always be a part of each other’s lives.
Bayode spoke emotionally of the relationships Echols has built with him and his children, and said he’s heard and seen the care from the lips and faces of both Echols and her husband.
“She has been in our lives for almost a year now,” she said. “I’m proud to call her my sister and as a part of my family.”
Healed and moving towards the regrowth of his business and their family’s new home in Holt, only weeks away from completion, Bayode expressed the pain of now distant memories, but moreover thankfulness for where his family now stands.
“I give the glory to God for everything,” he said. “For today, for our future, and for the lives of our family I thank Him.”
