Lyonel Doherty

Times-Chronicle

A Grade 2 Oliver student says his dreams were dashed when vandals ripped out the plants in his school’s garden last Friday.

“It was heartbreaking because of all the hard work the school has done. It’s like instead of pulling all the plants out they pulled all our dreams out,” said Jasper from Tuc-el-Nuit Elementary School.

“They need to respect other people’s land,” he lamented.

Jasper referred to the unthinkable vandalism that befell the school’s community garden in the early morning hours of May 21.

Principal Patsy-Anne Takacs said someone virtually ripped out all of their plants and flowers from the beds. She noted the potato plants were dumped out, all of the radishes were pulled out, several baskets of flowers were upended, and the new fairy garden in the wheelbarrow was overturned.

Even a scarecrow was taken and tauntingly placed in front of the gymnasium doors, Takacs said.

Fortunately, the new “mud kitchen” was left intact for the kids to continue playing with.

“They (the culprits) were really determined to wreck the plantings,” she pointed out.

Takacs said the students invested hours of their time growing the vegetables.

“We’re having a lot of conversation with kids that somebody who does something like this is obviously not okay with themselves. They are obviously coming from a place of not being okay and so we are teaching them the importance of just being resilient and we can get through this.”

Takacs said despite the “rollercoaster of emotions” everyone is feeling, there is sadness and compassion for the perpetrators.

“Whoever did this . . . it was a cry for help. You feel that sense of anger, sadness and frustration, but somebody is hurting somewhere.”

Keith, a pupil in Grade 1, said he and his mom went to the garden for a picnic when he discovered the vandalism.

“Our class planted these, uh, plants and those people ripped them up and dumped the dirt out. It made me feel really sad because people destroyed our garden.”

Keith said he would like to tell the vandals never to do that again.

Another Grade 1 student said she helped weed the garden and plant radishes.

“I feel angry and sad,” she stated, but agreed it would be a good idea to offer help to the vandals so they can enjoy the garden too.

Willow, in Grade 2, was also upset after seeing so much work destroyed.

“I would say (to them) that was a bad thing and I feel really bad that you did that.”

Fellow pupil Chloe said she felt really sad for the two baby birds that were killed.

“Some people just dumped them out of their home . . . they had a nest in the birdhouse.”

(It wasn’t determined if the vandals had anything to do with that incident.)

Ava, a Grade 7 student, said the vandalism was heartbreaking for her.

“To know that people in our town would do that is kind of scary and also quite sad.”

But Ava admitted being worried for the person responsible.

“I’m honestly a little bit worried for that person, of what made them angry enough to do that.”

Fellow student Maia said it was disappointing that people would go to all that trouble to destroy a garden that children worked so hard to build.