Generous donations replenish onions stolen from fifth-graders' garden

In June, gardeners planted yellow onions in a garden outside Albert S. Hall School in Waterville, Maine. Students and their families tended to the onions over the hot summer.

Mary Dunn’s incoming Grade 5 class anticipated harvesting them in the fall.

Two weeks ago, that Grade 5 class arrived at school to discover about 100 of the onions had been stolen.

"We looked at the onions and the tops were all dried," Mary Dunn, their teacher, told the Morning Sentinel. “We said, ‘Tuesday after Labor Day we’ll harvest them,’ and we went out Tuesday and they were all gone — the whole bed.”

Dunn, 58, teaches her students about gardening and healthy eating all year long, using the onions and other garden vegetables in her math, science and literature lessons.

The class was planning to donate their onions to the school cafeteria and a local homeless shelter.

Student Hannah Hall told a reporter that her classmates were sad that the homeless shelter wouldn’t receive their onions.

Still, the 10-year-old and her peers had room for forgiveness.

"I hope that the person that did it actually tells us because if they just came and told us, then they wouldn’t be in trouble," she told the Morning Sentinel.

"We embrace mistakes, but if it’s a mistake that hurts someone’s feelings, we work to get the kids to own it," Dunn added. “So if someone were to show up with some onions and say, ‘I’m sorry,’ that would be a huge lesson for these kids. That’s hard to do. That’s brave.”

The story of the missing onions went viral, prompting people all over the country to take action.

By the end of last week, more than 200 pounds of onions donated by local and not-so-local farms had replaced the stolen ones. More are due to arrive from Texas and New York this week.

On Friday, the Albert S. Hall School Gardens’ Facebook group posted the following:

“I’ve been waiting until today to post some details about the outpouring of love and generosity our school has received this week. The kids and I went through the emails today and read them aloud and marked a map of the United States (and Canada!) of where the emails, phone calls, and drop offs have come from. We have had donations of onions, BBQ Sauce, squash, as well as monetary donations to our gardening program and local homeless shelter. Donations and letters have come from British Columbia, Washington state, Oregon, California, Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Nebraska, Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine. Farming communities is my feeling. And many are onion producing communities. The letters are written with such tenderness and love. Many literally bring tears to the eyes of the folks in the office who first receive them and then to me and the kids. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We were right. Love and kindness do prevail.”

Now with more onions than they planted in the first place, Dunn’s class be giving away the surplus to food banks and soup kitchens.

"So, this is the lesson the kids are learning," Dunn said. “It renews their belief in human nature, which is what disasters do. Not that disasters are good, but when something goes wrong and you hang in there, something good comes of it.”