Each summer, students at the school, along with their parents, work on growing plants as part of the Center’s Summer Garden Program, which is designed to teach both parties how to grow and harvest vegetables. At the end of the year, the students pick the vegetables and a dinner celebration is held for them at the center’s facility, which is located at 200 Weese Street Extension.  

All the hard work, money spent, and things learned as part of the program was destroyed by a senseless act that saw all but a few of the herbs growing inside the greenhouse destroyed. The heavy duty plastic that covers the greenhouse was also damaged to the point where it will have to be replaced.

“It’s heartbreaking and sad because the kids work so hard on this greenhouse,” West Virginia Autism Supportive Center staff member Denise Campbell told The Inter-Mountain Wednesday. “The hours of enjoyment the children had with this are now gone. How are we going to explain this to them after they’ve been there all summer watching their plants grow? It’s just devastating.”

Campbell said students planted the vegetables this spring, and the time had come for them to start picking some of them.

Anyone who has information about the vandalism is asked to contact the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office.

“It’s really heartbreaking because they started all of the vegetables in the garden from either seeds or just small plants,” she said. “Most of the plants that were actually ready for them to pick are now gone.”

Campbell said she has already had several people from within the community reach out to her and say they want to help.

“We’ve had a lot of people from the community tell us that they are willing to help us anyway they can,” said Campbell. “It makes us feel good that there are people out there who do appreciate the small little things that we do to try and help children and their families with autism. This is an activity they do for the summer that they can take ownership in and learn about growing, it’s important to them.”

Campbell said the incident has been reported to the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating the vandalism.  

“We reported it and one of the deputies came out immediately,” Campbell said. “We are now going to have to put up cameras, which is a shame.”

Campbell said despite the children’s food being destroyed, she still plans on having the annual dinner celebration for them.

“We will come up with something for them to do,” said Campbell. “We typically have the dinner at the end of the season and we’re going to make sure we have something for these kids. We will make the best of it. The saying is, if something negative happens there’s an opportunity for something positive to happen.”

Anyone who has information about the vandalism is asked to contact the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office. For more information about the West Virginia Autism Supportive Center, call 304-614-4904 or visit the center’s Facebook page.