Stacey Yates with her daughters Lola and Hazel with their wooden spoon project called Spoonville. Photo / Dean Purcell
Stacey Yates with her daughters Lola and Hazel with their wooden spoon project called Spoonville. Photo / Dean Purcell
Covid has been absolute misery for billions of people over the past 18 months, but, if there is any silver lining, it has inspired some amazing community interaction: we've had communal singing and teddy bears. And now we have Spoonville.
The craze involves decorating spoons with faces and accessories and planting them in the front garden. Begun in Berkshire, England, during the first lockdown of 2020, the idea quickly caught on around the world and was popular in Melbourne especially.
The project has given kids something to do and somewhere to go. Photo / Dean Purcell
Now Stacey Yates from Te Atatu in West Auckland has grown her own community that numbers more than 350 characters in less than a week.
"We started off with eight wooden spoons last Tuesday," Yates said. "We decorated them and put a sign up saying 'Welcome to Spoonville' with instructions on how to take part. Now we've got our own QR code and a constant stream of visitors."
After delivering every disposable spoon they could find in the house around the neighbourhood, Yates went out and bought up "every spoon in the supermarket" and put out a call on Facebook for contributors.
Spoonville Te Atatu numbers over 350 member. Photo / Dean Purcell
Soon Spoonville was growing and local business, Bakenbreak, donated 200 spoons to keep up with demand.
Hundreds of people have visited Spoonville in Te Atatu over the past weekend to view the figures and to drop of their creations.
Yates, an art teacher at Glen Eden Primary, said that the feedback she is getting is really positive with parents saying it's given their kids something to do, it brightens their week and gives them a new place to visit. Some kids are coming along twice a day.
They took another delivery of 200 spoons from Beak N Break today as demand continues to grow.
"There are four different bubbles outside right now," Yates said. "It's been like this all day. I haven't even had time for lunch."
Yates doesn't really have a favourite spoon but says there are some really interesting characters in Spoonville.
There are no favourites in Spoonville. But there are some fantastic creations. Photo / Dean Purcell
"My daughter's favourite is Catness, inspired by The Hunger Games, but Little Red Riding Hood and the big Bad Wolf in bed is really clever," she said.
"We have Thing One and Thing Two, a nurse in full PPE, a cowboy and saloon bar and a zoo with animals behind bars."
"We're now building Rapunzel with her tower and her long hair," she said.
And Yates has now put out a challenge for other communities to build their own Spoonvilles with events planned for Great Barrier, Warkworth as well as other Auckland suburbs.
Yates said the project has really helped her kids after her 10-year-old hit rock bottom during this latest lockdown.
And it looks like Spoonville is here to stay.
"We've been contacted by our local librarian," Yates said.
