A disappointing event

Late at night on August 30/September 1st, the Foothills Learning Garden was vandalized. Ten pumpkins were stolen off the vines and smashed in the amphitheater near the garden. A few garden tools were also taken from the garden and scattered on the playing field next to the school.

The pumpkins that were stolen and destroyed were slated to be used in a garden fundraiser on October 3rd and in our classrooms for activities like seed counting, weighing, and measuring. If you are the parent of a teen in our neighborhood, we would appreciate it if you could bring up this topic with your child in hopes of either finding out who did it (so that they can reimburse the garden for the pumpkins they stole) or, at least, reminding them that such behavior is rude, unkind, immature, and unacceptable in our community.

While we will be changing the combinations on the locks to the garden, we know that a 6 foot fence is not enough to keep out a determined vandal. We appreciate your help keeping an eye on the garden and reporting any suspicious activity to us at foothillsgarden(at)gmail.com.

For now, we have removed the remaining ripe pumpkins for safekeeping, but we'd like to be able to leave them in the garden in the future...there is nothing more fun for a kindergartener than discovering an orange pumpkin on the vine. That is the essence of why we created the garden. Unfortunately, the vandals have taken away that joy for this season.

Thank you for your continued support of the Foothills Learning Garden.