RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) – The Fonticello Food Forest, a nonprofit community garden in Richmond, has been vandalized four to five times in the last three months, prompting organizers to launch a fundraising effort to rebuild damaged areas.
The garden serves approximately 150 to 170 families each week through food distributions. All food grown on the property goes back to the surrounding neighborhood, including through a 24-hour community fridge on site.
Among the items destroyed were children’s playhouses, fairy gardens, hand-painted structures, and a “wish phone” — a phone designed to allow visitors to speak to lost loved ones. A book library and seed library were also targeted, with materials and handles removed. Ceramic fairy houses made by children were also destroyed.
“The garden itself has been vandalized maybe four to five times,” said Monica Burton, garden steward at Fonticello Food Forest. “A couple of them have been in the children’s areas more recently where all of the areas that the kids play in, the playhouses and things were destroyed, taken apart, relocated.”…