The future of the North Albury Girl Guides is at risk after vandals broke into their hall three times in a single month, causing more than $5000 worth of damage.
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District manager Sharon Doody said the group relied on fundraising on top of small fees from parents and would have to close if the vandalism continued.
"I'm just feeling sick," Miss Doody said.
"I'm devastated to think it's money we got to try help the girls in our community and some people just come in and have disregard for everything.
"All fundraising we've done last couple months has all gone to waste fixing the damage."
Miss Doody said the first break-in occurred sometime between November 30 and December 2, not long after the group invested in new fire doors for the hall.
"They just made mess, they took the DVD player, the projector, even the sausages we had in freezer left over from a fundraiser," she said.
Miss Doody said when the vandals broke into the hall, they wrecked the new fire doors, which cost $1100 to fix.
She said the vandals returned sometime between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, taking sausages and food left over from a fundraiser and again breaking the newly repaired fire doors.
Only days later on January 1, a neighbour heard banging at the hall and threatened to call the police on the people in the vicinity.
Miss Doody said the neighbour then called her and when she visited the hall she discovered someone had tried to kick in the freshly repaired fire doors.
She said the vandals seemed to be mocking them by repeatedly breaking into the hall, even though there was nothing of value inside.
"There's nothing left in there, they took everything the first time, I think they just want to cause damage," she said.
"It's just costing us money, and lots of it."
Miss Doody said the girl guides and their volunteer leaders had been working hard to get ahead for 2020, but instead of going to help the girls, all the money raised was being wasted repairing and re-repairing the hall.
"I just felt so deflated," she said.
"Here we were thinking we were going to have a good start to this year after getting bit of money by fundraising - we thought we could do some more upgrades to hall."
Miss Doody said she'd been a girl guide leader for 25 years, and district manager for six, but was now considering whether the group had a future at all.
She said it wasn't fair to ask parents to pay extra participation fees to cover the repeated repair costs.
Miss Doody said if the vandalism continued the group wouldn't be able to run in 2021.
Digital journalists with The Border Mail.
Digital journalists with The Border Mail.
