The community garden at Mason Park may be looking into some extra security.

The garden was vandalized last month.

"Most of it was at the top of the hill where our kids garden was," Cheryl Schmidt with the NEOhaus Institute, which oversees the Mason Park garden, tells AkronNewsNow, "and they vandalized some of the boxes, and pulled up plants and vegetables and kind of threw them all over...so it was kind of disheartening, especially for our kids program."

Schmidt says the group has talked with the city of Akron and the Akron Public Schools about better security, including possible measures like adding a fence, beefing up surveillance or adding lighting.

"And they have been very, very receptive. So I think it's just a matter of where exactly we want the fence, what the cost is gonna be," Schmidt tells AkronNewsNow.com. "And the same thing with what has to be done to add the surveillance and what kind of costs we're looking at, so those are the things that we're doing now. I don't know how much this is all gonna cost."

Schmidt tells AkronNewsNow that once that cost is determined, NEOhaus will figure out what fundraising efforts are needed to pay for it.

She says that in addition to raising money at existing events like one scheduled at Mason Community Learning Center in October, other efforts could be added to pay for the upgrades.

Schmidt says the community really responded to get the Mason Park garden back in shape, with over 120 plants being donated...and volunteers and kids getting together to replant them.