Morning! For many of us our town, village and city parks hold many memories. Where we first learned to ride our bikes, hours of fun with parents, grand parents, friends and siblings making memories that shape our lives and inform our futures. An oasis of calm from the storm of life to walk around, enjoy and take time to reflect. Especially important to help our state of mind during lockdown where these green areas were our salvation. So when one of these beautiful sanctuary’s are wilfully and purposely vandalised and destroyed as they have been in Cardiff it leaves a whole community devastated and shocked at the mindlessness of the perpetrators. This sadly was no ordinary act of violence but a seemingly pathological attack on this beautiful park with over a mile of trees cut, fires started, bins and planters destroyed, lifting up man hole covers to block drains and even cabling for free wi-fi services slashed. Melissa Boothman runs a cafe called the secret garden there and came in to find that the cafe itself along with the adjoining nursery for plants and trees had also not been spared from this dark and sinister act of violence. So our £500 is going towards restoring this park back to its natural beauty and joining the people of Cardiff in not letting evil win and helping shine some light in this dark time. Thanks to Sian Gorst for her nomination x
Dear Joe and co at 500 reasons. This devastation happened in Bute Park Cardiff a few weeks ago .. It is heartbreaking to hear how extensive the damage was from this mindless vandalism of our beautiful park. The park is in the centre of our city and gives so much joy to so many people.. Melissa owns the Secret Garden cafe which it situated in the heart of the park and which was also affected by this vandalism!.. She was devastated, which shows in this video attached .. Since the vandalism Melissa with the help of others organised a community walk followed by a peoples picnic to show solidarity and resilience. She has recently set up a just giving crowd funding page to help replace the beautiful trees that were felled during the destruction.. The insurance thankfully paid for most of the damage but not the trees 😔 I would very much like 500 reasons to consider donating the £500 on one of our weeks to help in replacing these beautiful trees! Thank you so much Sian https://www.instagram.com/tv/CTrvcJxI7fX/?utm_medium=copy_link https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/restoreandprotectbutepark?utm_term=GBewEEbmx