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Reading garden at Detroit elementary school trashed by vandals

‘Very disappointing,’ says school Dean of Culture

DETROIT – School officials said students helped put together the area, but now all of their hard work is destroyed. It happened at Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School on West Seven Mile Road, near Woodward Avenue.

“I was walking into the building and I saw there were books everywhere, plants and pots flipped over, benches flipped over, the cover and pages were ripped out of the books, they were soaking wet, the garden looked like people have ran through it,” Derek Clark said.

That’s what Clark, the Dean of Culture at Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School, saw when he came to work Thursday morning. At first he thought it rained the night before, and that caused the damage, but that wasn’t the case.

“Who would do something like this?” Clark asked.

Especially to a place where not only kids play, but a garden where they took pride in designing and building, that they can enjoy while at school.

“The students do the bulk of the work. They do science projects where they plant things," Clark said. “They use all student efforts, for the most part, to beautify the garden.”

Clark said it’s hard to hide the disappointment and frustration.

“Definitely, definitely, Very disappointing, because like I said, I know that the work that the students and staffed put into it, it’s just heartbroken," Clark said. "Whoever did it, obviously, we’re not looking to find you or anything like that, but just think about who you’re hurting when you’re doing silly little acts like this. It’s a lot of kids who don’t have access to books.”

Clark said they are now locking the gate to keep this from happening again, but they have to repair the garden.

More: Detroit crime news


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