A youth community center in San Francisco got broken into overnight as thieves stole over $5,000 in gift cards, the center's leadership said Wednesday.
Community Youth Center Executive Director Sarah Wan said with a key in hand, the thieves helped themselves into the center's offices in San Francisco's Richmond District. The incident was caught on camera.
"They used a wrench to broke this gate and there was a lockbox that was here and then, they actually took the lock box," she said. “I think they went in for about 10 to 15 minutes."
According to Wan, the suspects stole about 100 gift cards that were worth more than $5,000 among a couple of other electronics.
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“It’s definitely heart wrenching when you think somebody who will actually steal or burglarize the space or violate the space, where we open for community that's supposed to be for safety,” she said.
The center’s leadership said the gift cards were meant for low income and immigrant high school students to buy back-to-school supplies, as a token of appreciation because the families had actually volunteered for the center.
“It’s definitely very upsetting. That’s why we want to let people know that we’ve been a victim of crime and we really want to raise the public awareness and I think this is definitely also pushing us to really work together as a community,” Wan added.
Wan said the students will get help even if it now comes out of Community Youth Center’s own general fund.
NBC Bay Area reached out to the San Francisco Police Department Wednesday, to see if they have any suspects but did not hear back.
