BY COBY RENKIN
Pascoe Vale residents have banded together to rebuild their local Spoonville after it was vandalised not once, but three times since Saturday.
Spoonvilles have been popping up all over Melbourne since lockdown began, making one-hour walks just a little bit more fun.
Residents contribute colourful characters made from spoons and other kitchen items, with the villages popping up on street corners, nature strips and existing garden beds.
One Spoonville, located on the corner of Gaffney Street and Park Street in Pascoe Vale, was destroyed and thrown into a nearby creek over the weekend, but residents were quick to rebuild it.
Since then, it has been destroyed and rebuilt a further two times, each incident motivating locals to search the creek and surrounding areas for displaced Spoonville residents.
Pascoe Vale resident Jen Perara had seen on the Pascoe Vale Residents Facebook group on Saturday morning that the decorated spoons had gone missing overnight, but had been spotted in the creek.
“I saw the post on Facebook and I’m about five minutes walk from there, so I thought, what better way to get out?” Ms Perara said.
“We walked down there, and we found a couple of spoons sort of washed up on the side [of the creek]…I walked along and actually found quite a few of the spoons.”
Ms Perara said she collected as many spoons as she could and “put them back in their rightful place”.
“It’s just someone who has decided to ruin it for everyone else and that’s what happened, whether it’s the grumpy old man on the corner or some teenagers,” she said.
“I hope they enjoyed their five minutes of fun.”
The vandalism came after the Spoonville was nearly hit by a car.
“It actually survived [the car], it was meant to be, it was meant to survive that, so how it didn’t survive the hands of humans is beyond me,” Ms Perara said.
When she returned with the retrieved spoons, Ms Perara said three new spoons had already become residents.
Local mum and social worker Nicole Kendall started the Spoonville with her two daughters a week before.
“I just thought it would be a really fun way to keep the community spirit going and when we’re going for walks it gives us something exciting to look forward to,” Ms Kendall said.
“I put a little spiel on the Pascoe Vale Residents group, and I put something on Instagram and it kind of just kicked off.”
Before the vandalism, 30 to 40 spoons called this Spoonville home, Ms Kendall said.
In a Facebook post announcing the vandalism, Ms Kendall wrote “it makes me so sad that we created this for our community and now it’s gone”.
“So many kids will be disappointed. Including mine.”
Locals shared their support in the Facebook group.
“Even though someone tried to destroy it, it took this community about three hours to start growing it again,” one woman wrote.
“Our three year old was disappointed to arrive this morning to find nothing. We went for a walk along the creek anyway, and when we came back it had already regenerated!” wrote another.
To find your nearest Spoonville, visit the Spoonville Australia Facebook group.
