SACRAMENTO — A volunteer-run nonprofit is devastated after more than $35,000 worth of donations meant for homeless veterans were taken or damaged.
“They literally went up onto the shelves and emptied everything,” said Randy Smith. “This really hurt. I mean, it basically knocked us to our knees.”
Smith found his nonprofit’s warehouse torn apart Tuesday morning, with ripped boxes and clothes scattered everywhere.
“This door actually had a what’s called a lock bar and it had a dead bolt lock in it and they literally tore this all off,” Smith explained.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office is investigating to figure who did this, while Smith had his own ideas.
“It was probably other homeless people, and that’s the part that hurts because they took things that homeless people would take, like toiletries, toilet paper, paper towels, foods,” Smith told FOX40. “All they would have had done was come to us and ask and we would have given them what they needed to get by.”
He’s trying to focus on moving forward but it won’t be easy for his organization, Sacramento Stand Down. Their major yearly event is coming up in August and they lost a majority of their donations.
“They’re given free medical, dental, vision care. A whole bunch of different providers come out and basically help to get them into housing,” Smith said.
He has been praying they’ll be able to get the items back or at least replace them.
“This is bad,” he said. “I can’t believe that someone would do this. I’m afraid that if this happens again there won’t be anything left.”
Sacramento Stand Down is looking at other locations for their warehouse to prevent any repeats. In the meantime, they’ve added an alarm system and several more padlocks.
You can donate to the nonprofit through their website.
