Students and staff at The Academy of Seminole (TAOS) were both heartbroken and outraged to learn that some of the flowers they worked hard to plant in the downtown district had been stolen.

The flowers were planted recently from the corner of Sharpe’s Department Store to just past GiGi’s Lunch Counter. The students had continued to water and care for the plants, and on Monday, the Academy discovered that several of the flowers/plants had been removed from the big planters and flowerbeds.

“Shame on you! The students, staff, parents, and community business contributed money, time and effort to making Main Street look nice,” said TAOS Principal Tammy Potter. “It is very disheartening and makes me furious!”

“Mrs. Marley’s fourth grade class was very upset when they heard that flowers were missing,” Potter added. “As always we turned the incident into a discussion and learned from it.”

The following are comments from Mrs. Marley’s students during the discussion:

“I am very mad because stealing is wrong, and we put a lot of hard work into that.” - Riley

“My mom told me to treat others the way you want to be treated. Right now they are treating us with disrespect.” - Emily

“We got our hands dirty to make part of our town look nice. How disrespectful to steal from us.” - Kapri

“It was not theirs to take and destroy. We worked hard.” - Ethan

“I feel angry, mad, and sad. I’m so upset that someone would do this.” - Jaxon

“They stole our hard work.” - Mia

“Why steal something that we put our heart into?” - Jaestin

“If you took the flowers and plants, put them back,” Potter said. “Maybe you need to learn a lesson in community service.”