Crossfield’s Vista Community Garden located in Amery Park has been dismantled by vandals for the second time since its gates opened to green thumbs in May.
The garden plots, which were built in 2014, were originally run by the Town of Crossfield, and prior to that by a local developer, before the Crossfield and District Agricultural Society took over administration of the plots last spring.
According to Liz Grace, president of the Crossfield and District Agricultural Society, the garden was first vandalised on July 21, and again in the early hours of Aug. 6, when plants were ripped to pieces, thrown on the ground and destroyed.
“We were super disappointed,” she said. “It’s such an insult as a gardener for your hard work and energy to be wasted for no reason.”
She added the society is taking steps to beef up security for the garden, and is pricing out both solar lights and motion cameras to deter future acts of vandalism. But as a non-profit organization, she said the society is unable to spend a large amount of funds on such measures, and would rather be allocating its resources elsewhere.
“It’s sad when we need to invest in these things instead of putting money back to the community in other places,” she said. “It’s just so disappointing. We hope to have security measures in place in the next few weeks, but our gardeners are nervous.”
Throughout the growing season, the agricultural society aims to give back to the community and encourages gardeners to donate any extra produce at harvest time. They also host a children’s gardening class in their 200-square-foot garden plot.
“I just don’t understand the motivation to destroy a garden plot,” reads a post on the society’s Facebook page. “Some of these plots go beyond hobby gardens and are providing veggies to families dealing with food security during these tough times.
“Our families have put a lot of time, money, and effort into growing these veggies and seeing them destroyed and left to waste is such a shame.”
Grace said there were several eye-witnesses to the most recent vandalism but they were unable to obtain any concrete evidence, other than a vague description of a group of people who were in the area about the same time. She added the society plans to get in touch with the Airdrie RCMP’s Crossfield liaison about the incident.
“I’m not going to speculate on the ages of the vandals, but please talk to your [family] about whether or not tearing up veggies is worth getting into trouble with the law over,” the society’s Facebook post continued.
“We would love it if the vandals would come forward and sign up to volunteer to see how much work goes into running a garden."
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