An organization built to help others is in need of some help of its own.
The Boys & Girls Club in Oakland was ransacked last week and thieves took tens of thousands of dollars worth of items used for after school education.
“They came here, you have to have some heavy tools to ungauged this,” said Darnell McCulloch. “This is the top part, so you have to take all that out then you have to lift it.”
He grew up at the Boys & Girls Club on International Avenue and is now an employee.
He said this is the first time the neighborhood safe spot has seen a major break in.
“It means everything,” McCulloch said. “It saved all of our lives, it saved my life. If it weren’t for this club I wouldn’t be here and thousands of kids won’t be here. This is like their safe haven, their second home.”
According to McCulloch, the thief or thieves cut through their steel gate to break into the building on the night before Halloween.
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The thieves went room to room stealing all the electronics in sight.
They then used a construction bin to load up dozens of TVs, iPads, computers, gaming equipment and even hundreds of dollars of candy.
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The club is currently in the midst of a construction project and they say nearly everything stolen had been purchased within the last year.
“It's like two steps forward, four steps backwards. Every time we try to upgrade for our kids, seems like something happens. This is very disappointing,” McCulloch said. “There has been a lot of work done to our club so the kids have somewhere safe to play.”
The Boys & Girls Club was relying on those items to provide after school programming including math, personal finance and reading for 40 to 60 kids.
For staff and the kids they serve, the break-in runs deeper than what was taken. It’s also about the mental scar it leaves behind.
“The ones who have taken it, they have taken away our hearts,” Tamikia McCoy, the education director of the club, said. “They have stolen the kids' hearts and now we have to explain to them why they can't be at home and be relaxed. Now everyone is on edge.”
While police investigate, the community has raised more than $10,000 to help replace what was taken and install new safety upgrades to the building.
Every dollar representing hope of a stronger, safer future for the community, and community organization they love.
“Everybody is coming together. I believe Oakland is being rebirthed in a sense and it is going to take the rebirthing, the development, it's gonna take one day, one moment and one second at a time,” McCoy said.
