Donation box thievery poses problem for area charities

Sunrise resident Dean Dupalo couldn't believe his eyes this summer when he pulled into a parking lot near the corner of Lake Mead and Hollywood boulevards.

"I was on my way in for a late haircut, and I glanced over at the donation box in the parking lot," Dupalo said. "My mind couldn't get a hold on what was happening. All our lives we see people placing donations, but this was different. Two women were taking items out and loading up their car."

Dupalo watched as the women quickly grabbed a few trash bags of clothing that were piled against the donation box and tossed them into their car. Then the younger and smaller of the two half climbed into the box and began hauling more items out.

Dupalo noted the license plate number and called the police, but the perpetrators were gone in a minute. Dupalo suspects that the crime was such a low priority, that the police never arrived.

"If someone is down on their luck and needs a shirt, that's understandable, but to see them taking things out on this scale, that's inexcusable," Dupalo said. "They took off fast like they were afraid they were going to get caught. They headed into the neighborhood across the street."

The donation box was owned and operated by Positively Kids, a charitable organization that provides a number of services for medically dependent children. Andrea Woods, director of community relations for Positively Kids, said that theft from donation boxes happens, although the group has no real way of tracking the frequency of such incidents..

"If someone steals from our box and no one sees it or reports it, we've got no way of knowing," Woods said. "I only know of two or three incidents in the year and a half I've been here."

Dupalo did some investigating on his own, starting with the woman who cut his hair at Great Clips.

"She saw it and said she'd keep an eye out, and saw it happen at least once more," Dupalo said. "One of the other stores had a camera trained right on the box, but they weren't interested in talking about it unless the police wanted it for an investigation."

Eventually, Dupalo happened upon one of the drivers who collects the donations, who told him that donation theft wasn't the only issue they had to deal with.

"He told me that people drop off couches and other large furniture despite signs saying not to," Dupalo said. "You have to pay an extra fee to have the trash people remove a couch from an apartment, so they drop it off at the donation box and the charity ends up paying the fee."

Woods confirmed that was the case.

"We have to move it and pay for that," Woods said. "We lose money instead of getting a donation."

Donation theft is one of several reasons Goodwill of Southern Nevada has phased into staffed drop-off locations. Kathy Topp, director of marketing and business development for Goodwill of Southern Nevada, also cited customer service, keeping the location clean and providing jobs as reasons for the change.

"We have donation sites at 30 places around the valley, some in stores and others in trailers set out among the community," Topp said. "We believe it's important to staff them. We have donation ambassadors at every one."

Couches and large furniture aren't an issue at Goodwill's locations because they are all at storefronts or tractor trailers. Positively Kids has 150 boxes scattered across the valley, and it doesn't have any storefronts, so staffing each location isn't feasible.

What irks Dupalo isn't the theft itself, but why he suspects it happened.

"I talked to some folks I know in law enforcement, and they told me that often, the thieves take the items to resell them at flea markets or yard sales," Dupalo said. "I've seen these 'yard sales,' where there are hundreds of items of clothes from a single residence."

Contact Sunrise and Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 380-4532.