Beith Community Development Trust was originally left devastated when a group of 13 and 14-year-olds targeted its property but is delighted the local community stepped up and got those to blame to own up
An award winning Scottish charity has gone from counting its costs to counting its blessings after local residents rallied round following an attack by vandals.
Beith Community Development Trust, which was named best community charity at the 2015 Scottish Charity Awards, was targeted by a group of teenage boys at the weekend who ripped into polytunnels, trampled on plants and broke seating at its premises in North Ayrshire.
However after taking the decision to post images of the incident – captured on the charity’s CCTV cameras – on Facebook local residents quickly responded to condemn the perpetrators and offer assistance in tracking them down and helping to repair the damage.
The boys came down to apologise with their parents, who were all horrified
Jean Lamont
Remarkably, within less than half an hour of the post being published on Wednesday night a group of six 13 and 14-year-old boys who had caused the damage sheepishly made themselves known and offered to right their own wrong.
“The boys came down to apologise with their parents, who were all horrified,” Jane Lamont, development manager at the trust told TFN.
“The boys had been drinking in the polytunnel to keep warm and there was basically a bit of high jinx resulting in a couple of things getting broken.
“The parents said they would make sure the boys do whatever we see fit to get it fixed and all offered money to pay for the damage.
“They are all going to do a bit of volunteering to repair the damage and then we will put it behind us.”
The charity has no plans to involve the police over the incident, insisting that the outcome has been more than they originally hoped for and they would now put it behind them and move on.
“We were very disappointed that all the hard work of the volunteers had been disrespected but we are very heartened by the response of the community,” Jean continued.
“They took it upon themselves to sort it by phoning up the boys and their parents and say ‘get this fixed’.
“It is great to see the ownership the community takes for their own environment and that people felt empowered to deal with it in a positive way.”
Beith Community Development Trust was originally set up as a social enterprise in 2010 to take over the running of the town’s astroturf football pitch. It has expanded rapidly however to offer a whole host of community services including afterschool workshops, music and drama camps, a credit union and job clinics to name only a few.
It was named Celebrating Communities champion at the 2015 Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations Charity Awards.
