Vandals target Avon School's garden
“It’s very disappointing and hurtful.”
Avon School principal Lisa Hill says vandals have destroyed the school’s newly created ma¯ra kai (community garden) during the weekend.
It is, she says, “heartbreaking” to see the school community’s hard work so pointlessly spoiled. She found out through a call from Peter McNamara, waste and water education officer for Stratford District Council, who had popped into the garden to see how it was progressing.
“He found most of it ruined. He managed to save half the plants.”
The plants had been donated by Mitre 10 Mega New Plymouth as part of a generous $1500 donation of tools and plants from the business, she says.
Avon School received funding through the Stratford District Council waste levy fund in February, supporting projects focused on reducing the amount of waste going to landfill.
They used the funds to buy a threebay composting system and create the community garden.
Lisa says the pupils have worked hard and will be heartbroken to find out their garden has been vandalised, and plants destroyed.
“We haven’t told them yet. We want to wait for the rain to clear before we show them. The rain will help the plants, so we are thankful for that. What has happened is an awful situation. However, we’ve got to see the positives. This will help our pupils build resilience to hurtful actions and outcomes. That resilience will help them later in life. We are here to help the students work through the feelings they will have.”
Lisa says once they updated the school’s Facebook group with news of the damage, support came pouring in.
“St Andrew’s Church has offered to replace the damaged plants. We’ve also had wha¯nau reach out and offer to donate plants. It’s nice to know that there is still kindness and generosity out there.”
The next step is to plant more seeds.
“We were going to donate our first harvest to the kaumatua that work with our school. It’s annoying it will take longer now, but this will still be our end goal. Once we have donated the first harvest, future harvests will be used in our school and the wider community.”