Raw Story: Robberies across US target organizations set up to help the needy

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Around the United States, grinches have been busy stealing the spirit of Christmas as they stage a spate of robberies targeting organizations set up to help the needy.

In the Washington suburb of Gaithersburg, a Goodwill charity shop was robbed twice in a fortnight, the most recent hold-up coming a week ago.

"It's very sad that someone would rob a charitable agency whose sole purpose is to provide job training to people who need work in a very difficult economy," Brendan Hurley, vice president of communications for Goodwill, told AFP.

"To take from those people who have little and need much for your own selfish gain is extremely sad," he said.

In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, around two weeks ago, more than 1,000 dollars' worth of donated toys, bikes, and dolls that had been collected by a motorcyclists' rights group to give to poor kids were stolen from a storage shed, the bikers said on their website.

Thieves have also struck at charities' toy depots in Kansas, Illinois, and New York, where the Salvation Army of Ithaca and Tompkins County had hundreds of toys stolen just weeks before Christmas.

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Grinches_robbing_US_poor_at_Christm_12242009.html