Charity furniture is torched by vandals
A GROUP of unemployed people who built wooden furniture to sell for charity have seen their efforts go up in smoke after vandals torched their work.
The group, who take part in a back-to-work scheme in Oxgangs, were devastated to find that the garden benches, planters and bird boxes they had been making for three weeks from recycled materials had been set alight over the weekend.
Dorothy Hewat, senior business manager for A4e in Scotland which runs the New Deal training course, said: “My staff went in on Monday morning and realised that the bothy had been broken into over the weekend. They’ve stolen all the tools as well and they’ve taken the wooden stuff out and put it in a bonfire in the park and burned it.”
She said the group were upset that much of their work had been destroyed.
“They’re doing it because they’re unemployed and it gives them work experience, but they’ve also done it for the community and they’ve put in a lot of hard work. They’re very upset about it, but because we’d made the commitment to go to Tesco, we’re going to go ahead with it.”
Site supervisor Alex Robertson added: “I’ve spoken to the boys and they said it’s not going to deter them in any way. It’s not minor, but something like this we can bounce back many times over.
“They’ve worked very hard this week to make up material that was destroyed for the charity auction at the weekend.
“They won’t be able to make a large amount for the event but we’re working really hard to complete as much as we can.”
He said that even since the fire, staff at the centre had been forced to repeatedly chase youngsters away from the remains of the bothy.
Tags: auction, bench, benches, boxes, bro, bur, charity, cot, fir, planters, ups, urn, vandals, wh, wooden furnitureRelated posts
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