VENUS Bay Community Centre has recently been hit by multiple thefts, with garden equipment, power tools and native plants taken.
In the most recent incident, a locked shed was broken into.
“They’ve jimmied the door open, taken all the gardening equipment and a whole lot of power tools,” Venus Bay Community Centre manager Alyson Skinner said.
Previously, an entire large tray of plants was stolen, having been propagated for the community by a native plant group that operates at the centre.
“There’s an amazing amount of volunteer effort and resources (allocated) so that we can have indigenous plants for the area available, so it’s disheartening,” Alyson said of the loss.
The native plant group also grows manna gums for the centre’s ‘Koala Food’ project.
That initiative has been running for around a decade.
“We’ve been propagating and providing manna gums, which is the preferred koala food, and we always do it at Easter, so people can come and get a manna gum seedling free or by donation,” Alyson said.
A map has been created to highlight the local areas in which people have been planting the trees, with Alyson saying there is a desire to create some koala feeding corridors.
“We’re hoping people come and tell us about the koalas that they’ve seen,” she said.
“We had two in the manna gums out the front of the centre a couple of weeks ago, making all their koala noises, so that was beautiful.”
Other indigenous plants for the area will also be available over Easter.
“It’s a good time to plant,” Alyson said.
The plants are available on Saturday morning and Monday morning, with the Venus Bay Community Centre shut on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
