With the help of the Kawartha Lakes community, Gamiing Nature Centre near Bobcaygeon is continuing to recover from a vandalism incident earlier in March.
The Discovery Shack, a heated portable at the non-profit outdoor and wildlife education centre, suffered an estimated $20,000 worth of damage when educational displays were smashed, as well as furniture and windows and the portable’s propane furnace.
Crayola Canada, headquartered in Lindsay, has donated coloured pencils, coloured markers, pencil sharpeners, and crayons to Gamiing, which is located on the shores of Pigeon Lake south of Bobcaygeon.
“With enormous gratitude we humbly accept this donation,” Mieke Schipper, volunteer executive director of the centre, writes on social media.
Some of the educational displays in the Discovery Shack that were vandalized include animal furs and skeletons, birds of prey displays, a nature craft station, a nature puppet show theatre, and Parks Canada nature posters.
Volunteers from the community have also donated their time and labour to help Gamiing clean up the vandalized Discovery Shack, while others have stepped up with donations to help replace some of the damaged wildlife exhibits.
For example, John Hulcoop has donated a mounted display of a rainbow trout. Support has also come from beyond the Kawartha Lakes, with Bill and Barb Issac — two retired outdoor education teachers from Warkworth — donating a mounted display of a 11 point white-tailed deer buck.
If you’d like to support Gamiing Nature Centre’s restoration of its Discovery Shack, either as a volunteer or by donating materials, you can email info@gamiing.org.
Gamiing Nature Centre receives no government funding and relies entirely on private and corporate donations. For more information about Gamiing Nature Centre, or to become a member or make a monetary donation, visit gamiing.org.
