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A homeless veteran and a refugee family are the victims of a thief who stole donations off of church property.
Someone broke into the lot right across the street from the Custer Road United Methodist Church and stole a trailer loaded up with donations.
Doug Nickols is one of the volunteers who delivers donated furniture to families every Saturday as part of the non-profit, Bed Start Ministries.
Bed Start collects, sorts and distributes donated furniture and household necessities.
“Many of the veterans, for instance, have fallen on hard times,” said Nickols.
“Whether they came out of homelessness, abusive situations, a veteran coming out of a rehab program, people coming from another country that are running from a bad situation,” said volunteer Suzanne Betterley.
The non-profit works out of storage sheds and trailers on the church’s property. They’ve never had a problem until Wednesday, when Doug discovered someone broke into the locked gate and towed away the biggest and newest trailer, which was already loaded for Saturday's delivery.
Items in the trailer were supposed to go to a veteran in northeast Dallas and a refugee family sleeping on blankets in their apartment in Plano.
The crib for the family’s 9-month-old was also on the trailer.
Interpreter Faranak Noudoust had the tough job of breaking the news to the family.
“Most are believers, and they say that God provides and we are waiting for that,” said Noudoust.
Nickols says he’s getting back to work without the trailer.
“It happens,” he said. “You go on and we get another trailer. Trailers aren't important to us; it's the people we serve.”
Plano police took the report, looking for any video or anyone who may see the trailer or know anything about the crime.