Like in a fairytale

Once upon a time there was a dark forest that was frightening, but then a hero uprooted brambles, cut down dragons and saved the princess. We have all read fairy tales like this or told them to our children and grandchildren. But then our rationality has relegated them to the world of the fantastic and the imaginary and everyday life, we tell ourselves, it is good to live it with your feet on the ground.
But on closer inspection with the eyes of those capable of amazement, we realize that these are not just fairy tales and that life could be better if we knew how to recognize the story of the defeated dragon written.
The dark woods would perhaps be less frightening and we would find the courage to face them more confidently.
This is why sharing the story of PalaSermig, a work that is not imaginary at all, but very concrete, is to restore to all of us the amazement of truth.
The municipal sports facility in via Carmagnola in Turin was the dark forest in which the children and young people of the neighborhood entered alone to play football. In the midst of mattresses abandoned at the edges, where someone slept at night. Avoiding the syringes left on the ground by those who did.
Under the eyes of adults who are not always benevolent.

But then a handful of heroes opened the eyes of the heart and started playing with them.
Together they evicted the dragons and discovered they knew how to play football.
Together they learned to train and focus. They found that the whole team is essential, even the bench, to fight to the end.
They tasted some victories and overcame the defeats and became many, from the smallest to the largest.
This is the story - it seems a fairy tale but it is reality - of the Sermig sports club. Born in 2011 for having opened the eyes of the heart and seeing children who could no longer be left alone, born from the courage to live in the dark forest, together.
Lastly, the miracle of PalaSermig is grafted into this story.

The word "miracle" is also not misused. In praying to the Gospel we may be tempted to believe that miracles are unrepeatable facts that occurred two millennia ago. But Providence "acts in disproportion, in silence, in concealment. We would hardly notice it if we didn't write down, discreetly, but punctually, everything that is given to us ”(The joy of answering yes. The rule of Sermig) and right there we realize the miracle.
In January we started excavating the foundations, then the pillars, the structure, the roof, the systems, the finishes. At the beginning of November, the inauguration in the presence of President Mattarella.
We would be crazy if we appropriated this story, if we did not read in it the miracle that happened.
How many times was the rain forecast that would have stopped the works and instead ...
I remember the evening before the assembly of the heating machine on the roof with the huge crane booked to pick it up. There was a weather alert because the monsoon and violent summer rains were forecast just for the time of assembly. The truck with the car delivered from Veneto caught torrential rain all the way. But at the PalaSermig it was even sunny and we were able to mount safely.
 

A series of unforeseen events made us find again on 11 January 2021 still practically at the starting point, none of us believed that we could meet the necessary end-of-month date to start laying the pillars. Instead, the excavation company moves vehicles and men from other sites and we are ready for January 28th. It's a Thursday. But more than anything else it is the day of St. Thomas, another disciple, like us, who at one point doubted.
There were days when there were almost a hundred people from different companies on the construction site and no one was hurt by working in harmony, helping each other.
It was a year of Covid and no one got sick forcing the quarantine.
Covid, the shutdown of the Suez Canal and production in China have made it difficult to find materials for everyone and of any kind. We too have struggled many times to find iron, wood, insulation. There have been occasions when late in the evening we were resigned to the fact that the next day the construction site would stop due to lack of materials.
Like the evening when a friend calls me at 8 pm and tells me that the electro-welded mesh, without which we would have been stationary the next day, had found it in Bergamo and that the next morning at eight he would have delivered it to the construction site.
The monitors with which we welcomed the President and which we used for testimonies and videos arrived from China seven days before the inauguration.
Assembly time: one week ...

Construction site anecdotes. Or rather notes so as not to forget that we only had two loaves and five fish and that someone else put everything else.
We have truly witnessed a miracle, started many years ago by those who had their eyes open to see lonely children.
Today those children have a new home: it is called PalaSermig. We just have to say thank you.

Elena Canalis
Focus
NP December 2021