David Hill saw the worst in people when more than 100 plants were recently stolen from the Fairbridge Children's Park.
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But the FCP chairman's faith in humanity was quickly restored when "out of the blue" the group received an offer to replace all of the coastal rosemary (Westringia Mundi) plants. That offer came from Rex Wilson.
"We drive past there most days. We work out in Molong and live in Cabonne Shire on the edge of Orange," Mr Wilson said.
"We've seen it being built for the last three years and it's pretty amazing. You do your walks in there with the family and it's an amazing little spot that's not in town."
So when Mr Wilson saw the story in the Central Western Daily about the theft, he immediately sprung into action and offered to pay for every single plant that needed to be replaced.
"It was almost hard to believe that an out of town memorial had been vandalised with such thought," he said.
"They've gone to some effort to remove the plantings. I was amazed and disgusted. I couldn't believe that someone had gone to that much effort to do so much damage to something so important."
On Friday, Mr Wilson alongside wife Lucy and their four children, Cherry, Holly, Adeline and Clancy (pictured right) planted the first six replacement plants that their donation had made possible.
"We're not really doing anything, just offering a bit of support with a few plants," Mr Wilson added.
"There's a huge team working behind the scenes to try and get these replaced. We're just digging a hole and popping a few plants in."
But it was much more than that for Mr Hill.
"The theft of the plants left us feeling devastated. We've gone from seeing the worst kind of story in the theft of the plants to the best possible story," he said.
"This just restores your faith. We were absolutely shattered that the plants had been stolen for the second time and really crestfallen, and then out of the blue this guy comes out to pay for it."
Mr Hill was also at the planting on Friday and thanked the family.
"The symbolism of it is terrific and I think it reflects so well on the Central West. The generosity of spirit is really terrific," Mr Hill said.
"We've built this park largely on volunteers and pro-bono work. We pretty well exhausted our funding and were at our wits' end about what to do. It's a real shot in the arm."
This was the the second time the plants had been stolen from the military memorial in the past year.
"'As a community we have a responsibility to show our young that we can together do things better," Mr Wilson added.
"(The park) has enormous sentiment and steers a restorative path, a place for the community to reflect, grow and make things right."
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