Carly Burd, a woman in the UK who has fed more than 1,600 people through the cost of living crisis, found her garden vandalized with salt on April 12.
Burd launched her project, “A Meal On Me With Love”, around July 2022 as inflation hit record highs in the UK, leaving many in risk of hunger and homelessness.
Based in Harlow, England, Burd had transformed her garden into an allotment, where she grew and donated organic fruit, food and other essentials to those in need with the help of her three children and other volunteers, despite struggling with multiple sclerosis and lupus herself.
She took the story to TikTok on the day she discovered the crime, when more than five kilograms of salt was poured onto the land, thus killing the crops and sabotaging soil fertility.
“I’m absolutely heartbroken,” she said through tears in her video. “Everything I’ve planted won’t grow, and I can’t replant on it because it won’t grow.”
Her video quickly went viral gaining almost 5 million views, and people flooded her post with offers of funds, advice and support.
With the help of volunteers, she has now dug up much of the salt and is now trying to restore the land.
Her GoFundMe page also saw an influx of donations.
With an initial goal of £4,000, the fundraiser has now received more than £240,000 in total from about 14,800 donors around the world.
Five days after the incident, Burd commented on her fundraiser page, saying that it was “really amazing how many lovely people are out there,” adding that she was trying to her best to move forward.
It is still unclear who vandalized Burd’s garden.
Burd says she plans to build a community hub where the neighborhood can come to connect and share their own harvests and cook with one another.
The number of British children going through food poverty has almost doubled to nearly 4 million, according to The Guardian.
