By Jamie Salter
A range of garden supplies have been stolen from Cardinia Primary School’s Sustainability Garden, leaving students and staff deeply disappointed.
The incident was believed to have occurred on Thursday night 26 May, with the thief taking home a Subpod, birdbath, cacti and four large bags of potting mix.
Cardinia Primary School assistant principal Trudie Esler said a lot of work went into getting the garden up and running.
“We stumbled upon the damage on Friday and we had to work out a way to make sure nothing more could be stolen over the weekend,“ Ms Esler said.
“We used grants to build the garden and we were only finishing it last Monday.
“We even had a church group come in and help set it up and we had a parent that donated all these potted cacti to the school.“
A weekend-long working bee was held on March 19 to assemble the garden which was being used for science and sustainability classes, with students taking food scraps to the worm farm to be used as compost.
The school is calling for anyone with information to come forward and for the stolen goods to be returned.
“I hope that it’s someone in the community who knows it’s there behind the school and that they might drop it back,“ Ms Esler said.
The school will work towards rebuilding the garden.
Local residents have responded to the robbery on a recent Facebook post made by the school.
“How disappointing! Who steels things from a school!? I really don’t understand people sometimes,“ Debbie Elstone said.
Michelle Burness said it was “such a shame“.
“I know my son was really enjoying the sustainability program,“ she said.
Cardinia Primary School’s garden was not the only one targeted recently, with the Hills Community Garden in Cockatoo the victim of vandalism.
Garden members were shocked to arrive on Sunday morning and discover the signage had been ripped out of the ground and damaged.
