Break-In At Tacoma Food Bank Spoils Hundreds Of Meals

TACOMA, WA — A break-in at a Tacoma-area food bank has forced the bank to close its doors, and ruined hundreds of meals meant for struggling community members.

St. Leo's Food Connection announced the news over Facebook Wednesday, saying that their warehouse had been broken into and vandalized, and that they would need to shut down until further notice.

After surveying the damage, Executive Director Lisa Gallegos says the food bank hopes to be up and running sometime late Thursday, and back to regular hours Friday and Saturday. Gallegos credits the quick bounce-back to the food bank's hardworking volunteers.

"We have the most amazing team, the whole team came together," Gallegos said.

Before they reopen though, the food bank will need to fully determine the extent of the damages. The Tacoma News Tribune, who first broke the story, reports the vandals left human waste on the floors. That waste turned the break-in to a biohazard situation, forcing the food bank to toss out 1,200 + meals that should have gone to school children across the county, according to The News Tribune.

Gallegos says the suspects also made off with three laptops, and damaged an unknown amount of food. Volunteers are still working to determine how much of that stored food can be reclaimed. Fortunately, security footage of the break-in shows which parts of the warehouse the vandals visited, making the damages easier to parse.

News of the break-in has caused an outpouring of community support, with many reaching out and asking how they can get involved.

"We've had people calling us most the day wanting to know," Gallegos said.

The biggest need, according to Gallegos, is just more food. Anyone interesting in donating to replace the lost food is invited to come down to their Yakima Avenue address starting Thursday afternoon.

"Any help is great, it kind of caught us all off guard," Gallegos said.

Community members can also provide support by donating or volunteering time at St. Leo's Food Connection's website.

St. Leo's Parish says the food bank started out of a garage in Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood back in 1982, but in the decades since has grown into Pierce County's second largest food bank, serving around 500 meals every day.