By Katie Collett
You may have heard about the vandalism at the Wayland Scout house near the Wayland Town Beach, but I am going to tell you more details about the situation and how it affected the students here.
Three teenagers broke into the scout house and vandalized it. They smashed through the door with a big rock and then broke in. They then took the fire extinguishers off the wall and sprayed everything from top to bottom in the powdery chemicals. Not only did they use the fire extinguishers from off the wall, they took ones that the scouts use for training. As if that wasn’t enough damage, they ripped items apart and off the walls. They took apart a first aid kit and destroyed equipment. They didn’t just cover the bottom floor with chemicals, they brought themselves up into the attic and destroyed everything up there. They took apart bins with items used for educational training purposes. In summary, they trashed the whole building. The cost of these damages are about $20,000 dollars. That includes cleaning and new equipment. After they sprayed the entire building from top to bottom in chemicals that could have been used to save lives in fires, they dragged their feet over their footprint so that police couldn’t see their footprints, that didn’t stop the police from finding the three highly likely guilty suspects. It is not confirmed if the three teens are charged with juvenile but they will most likely be fined and have to do community work.
Outside of the scout house stands a public mini library used by the community. A mini library is a small shelf of books, where people can take and leave a book for free. They smashed the glass sheltering the books from the rain and kicked the back of the shelf with their muddy footprints.
Not only did just boy scouts use this, all scouts did. Kids from K-12 use this house, and it is a house that holds sentimental value for many folks. Since this terrible situation happened, troops will not be able to host indoor meetings, and with COVID the rules are strict on where you can host meetings. If you are interested or would like to help fund these repairs, you can donate! This is the online fundraiser, but if you would like to donate by mail you can mail checks to Troop One, P.O. Box 5282, Wayland, MA 01778.
