By Lindsay Peyton

Brad Cerenzia works from his home in South Park – which makes it easy to keep an eye on the neighborhood.

It’s not that he has an axe to grind. He simply wants to protect the community where he has lived for a number of years, a place and a population that he has grown to love.

When Cerenzia has a few minutes to take a break from his day job, he hops on his bike and cruises the streets.

He’s on a mission to remove fliers that have been stapled to street posts that feature a number to call “for fast deportation of illegal immigrants.”

And when Cerenzia tears down a sign, he replaces it with one of his own, reading “Welcome to South Park. Wherever you’re from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor.”

Cerenzia posts copies of the flier in Spanish and Vietnamese as well.

It all started three or four weeks ago, when Cerenzia learned about the first sign on Facebook.

A few neighbors banded together to discuss what to do.

“We decided as a group to tear it down,” Cerenzia said. “We also wanted to counter this person’s posts.”

The neighbors all agreed that the language was antagonistic and designed to scare immigrants and refugees.

Lashanna Williams was part of the group. “The sign is mean and makes people feel excluded and scared, like they don’t belong,” she said.

The neighbors then designed their own signs with a smiling Statue of Liberty.

Williams found printers to donate copies of the sign. In total, the group printed 1,400 fliers.

“We shared them with each other, people came by to pick the fliers up and we went to town,” Cerenzia said.

The message was simple. “Wherever you’re from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor,” Cerenzia said. “I’m glad to stand up for my neighbors.”

He doesn’t blame area residents for being afraid to speak up – and he’s happy to fight on their behalf.

“I know people who are terrified to leave their house,” he said. “It really matters when you stand up for someone who doesn’t have a voice, whether it’s because they don’t speak English or they’re scared of their neighbors or because they’ve lived 40 years of terror in their country and just want to be left alone.”

Williams is also often in the neighborhood hanging signs. She places her fliers next to the ones she finds offensive.

“We can coexist,” she said. “It feels important to know that people like this are in our neighborhood. May it make the fabric of us even stronger.”

Cerenzia hopes that taking action against bigotry is contagious.

His reception, however, hasn’t been all positive. He says some people have told him that he is stifling the other sign-maker’s free speech.

“You’re welcome to say anything you like – and you’re also welcome to the consequences of that,” Cerenzia said. “I want people to know that they don’t have to – and they shouldn’t – accept hateful behavior in this community. I would much rather have a spirit of hope in our neighborhood than allow this message of fear.”