UK: She fed hundreds of struggling families with food from her allotment. Then vandals covered it in salt
Heartbroken volunteer who has MS vows she won’t stop as she weeps at devastation in viral TikTok video
By Jane Dalton
The Independant
Apr 13, 2023
Excerpt:
Vandals broke onto an allotment where a volunteer was growing food to give to people struggling with the cost of living – and poured salt over the land to stop anything being cultivated there.
Carly Burd wept as she explained how she was heartbroken by what had been done, saying she estimated 5kg of salt had been used.
She had transformed her garden in Harlow, Essex, into an allotment to provide free organic fruit and vegetables to those on benefits, pensioners people on low incomes.
But Ms Burd said someone had jumped over the wall in the night and poured salt over the soil.
“It means everything I’ve planted won’t grow,” she said through her tears. “And I can’t replant on it because it won’t grow.
“So all the hours and hours and hours of work we’ve put in is now dead. And they’ve done it everywhere.”
In video footage of the allotment, salt can be seen in lines across the surface.
Ms Burd, who has multiple sclerosis and lupus and is herself on disability benefit, said she had fed 1,613 people during the cost-of-living crisis. She makes food boxes comprising homegrown fruit and veg, as well as staples such as rice and pasta.
