Thieves target cancer garden
HEARTLESS thieves have stolen plants and shrubs from the Garden of Reflection at Kiltonga Wildlife Reserve in Newtownards.
The garden was set up a year and a half ago, to give people in the area living with or affected by cancer a quiet space to escape from the stresses of everyday life.
Around five weeks ago, large shrubs, plants and bird feeders started to go missing from the garden.
Newtownards woman Kathy Cash, who was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2003, set up the garden after she and her friend Susan Wilson, who sadly lost her fight against the illness, came up with the idea.
Around 25 members of Kathy's cancer support group Hope now visit and work the garden on a regular basis.
Mrs Cash said: "The garden helps with the well-being of the group. We can come here, work at the garden and plant things and watch them grow. It's just a good, quiet space for people to come.
"A lot of different groups have helped us out with planting and the heavier work, because some of our members are not physically fit enough. So it's a place that has helped bring the community together, as it's open to the public too."
Mrs Cash said when she attended the garden last Sunday, she noted several large shrubs had gone.
She said it was hard to accept that people were actually going in to steal the plants that they wanted.
"Yes, they can be replanted, but that's not the point. Our youngest member is 25 and they were devastated to see something that they had planted with care, and looked after, just gone."
Mrs Cash said she hoped the perpetrators carrying out the thefts would try to understand the damage and hurt they were causing.
"It's been emotionally draining," she said. "A lot of planting and work goes on in the garden, and it's just awful to think of it being destroyed like that. The garden is very, very special.
"The garden is a garden of reflection, and I would just ask the people who have been involved in this to reflect on what they have done.
"I hope they can reflect on the damage that has been done, and learn from their actions."
Jim Shannon, DUP MLA for Strangford, labelled the thefts "repulsive".
"To say that this is disgusting is understating things. This vile act is so low that I am shocked anybody would think to have done this in the first place."
Mr Shannon appealed for anyone with information to contact police.
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Tuesday 29 May 2012
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