The whānau of Te Teko Kōhanga Reo are furious after discovering their premises have been robbed during the COVID-19 lockdown period.
Lorraine Hale, as known as Whaea Lolo, took to Facebook to express the disappointment felt by the whānau.
In her post, she wrote that almost $700 worth of new paint and accessories had been stolen.
“The disgusting part about this is you had the audacity to do it in the first week of the COVID lockdown, during the weekend or earlier in the week in a time when we were all supposed to stay home and keep our whanau safe,” she said.
She says over the past three months whānau had been working hard to upgrade the playground to make it a "safe, happy and bright environment" for the tamariki to play in.
The kōhanga had also purchased the resources to complete the fence and shed murals in preparation for the celebration of their 37 years in operation.
Over the last two weeks Hale said kaimahi were rostering themselves to monitor our kohanga for vandalism and breakings.
She described whoever stole the resources as being “deceitful”.
“When you brook the lock on the door you were clever enough to attach it and make it look like the door hadn’t been tampered with.”
Hale is calling for help to have the items returned.
“These paints are all exterior paints and are pretty bold colours, so you will know if they supposed to be in a house or not,” she said.
The colours include yellow, black, white, pink, teal blue, green and blue. There are also sets of paintbrushes, painters masking tapes and rollers missing.
“So if you have any morals will give you this opportunity to go and put our paints back on our veranda so we can continue to beautify our walls and fences with our murals.”
Hale says she will press charges if she finds out who stole the items.