$1,000 can go a long way to help families: Share
Krisse Sondles, manager of Share Family and Community Services’ thrift store, which was broken into on the weekend. The thief or thieves caused about $1,000 damage to the St. Johns Street store. With Share expected to provide food hampers to 1,900 people this Christmas, the loss of that money hurts the agency.
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A Grinch broke into the Port Moody thrift store run by Share Family and Community Services early Sunday morning, causing $1,000 worth of damage and possibly stealing some goods.
A spokesperson for the social service agency said it’s not known what the thief stole because money isn’t kept on the premises. But Heather Scott said volunteers were devastated at the destruction of filing cabinets and doors, and were also upset that money that should go toward Christmas food hampers will now have to go to repairs.
“Volunteers put so much time and energy into the store so the money goes to the food bank and it’s frustrating for us,” Scott said.
This year, Share is expecting to register 1,900 people for Christmas food hampers, a 30% increase over last year. The increased demand translates into a total 90,000 food items that must be collected between now and mid-December when food hampers will be packed and distributed.
Share will have to spend scarce resources on repairing damaged locks and replacing filing cabinets — money that could been used to fill hampers for 200 Tri-City families, Scott said.
“That $1,000 may not be huge but to us, it’s the money we can’t use at Christmas time. We’ll have to cover that,” Scott said.
But some good news also came out of the weekend because the popular Santa Food Drive in the Canyon Springs and New Horizons subdivisions brought in 3,391 pounds of food.
Scott said people handed over their food donations to firefighters and some even brought treats such as banana bread and Rice Krispie squares for volunteers to eat.
One family donated 10 boxes of food it had collected over the past several weeks.
That food won’t stay around for long. The food bank only has two weeks supply so this batch will likely be placed in hampers almost immediately.
Said Scott: “It’s going out as fast as it’s coming in.”
dstrandberg@tricitynews.com
