Clothing, other items set aside for disabled soldiers on Rose Drive

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

The opposite of “Christmas in July” must be the midsummer arrival of the Grinch.

Only this time the Grinch — whomever he or she is — targeted items marked for donation to a charity for disabled veterans.

Benicia resident Ted MacArthur put a lot of time and effort into collecting more than two dozen bags’ worth of items to donate to the Disabled American Veterans California Rehabilitation Foundation Inc., a nonprofit based in Southern California. The clothing and electronics, placed in a large box outside his home on Rose Drive, was slated for a Friday morning pickup by the nonprofit.

“We had a very large box with a lot clothes, some of which were brand new, some shaving gear, electrical appliances — you name it,” MacArthur said. “It was all good stuff.”

The box was so large, in fact, MacArthur had to use a dolly to move it to the front of their house. He did that Thursday night, thinking it would save trouble for the nonprofit’s pickup man, who was scheduled to arrive at 8:30 a.m.

But somebody beat the veterans charity to the punch. When the driver arrived to collect the box, MacArthur said, it was gone.

“The vets guy comes by about 9:30, 10 o’clock, he said, ‘Where’s the stuff?’ I said, ‘Well, you already took it, I guess.’”

But the driver hadn’t collected it. “I said, ‘Oh my gosh, somebody ripped it off!’”

That was no small feat, MacArthur said. “It was a lot of stuff. I purposely save it for these guys,” he said.

MacArthur’s wife, Karen, said she saw something odd in the wee hours of the night that may have been the thieves.

Karen wasn’t sleeping well, and between 2-3 a.m. she went downstairs.

“I didn’t see anybody actually take anything, but I heard a funny noise, then I heard a door open. There was a big car parked across the street,” she said.

The car, she said, was really noisy. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, that was a big car,’ and it had a bad muffler or something.

“It never occurred to me that somebody would take that stuff.”

What’s worse, it’s not the first time donations have disappeared from the MacArthurs’ doorstep.

“I think this has happened before, but with much smaller amounts of stuff,” Ted MacArthur said. “I just had a couple bags filled up, and I’d leave them out there. I’d have the vets come by and I told them, well it was out there. He said, ‘Hmmm, I guess somebody else took it.’”

“He proceeded to tell me that I should probably call them and make special arrangements, because apparently that is not the first time (it’s happened),” he said.

A customer service representative at Disabled American Veterans concurred, saying theft of donations meant for veterans is all too common.

“Sometimes we have routes in that area, people go around in cars and trucks and just steal the items,” said Cecilia, who declined to give her last name. “It’s been getting worse.”

“I recommend that next time they schedule a pickup, put it close to your front door, request for the driver to knock on your door, and to call you before we get there.”

Many opportunistic thieves know the organization’s routes and schedules. “A lot of people know what places, what streets we service. They know we’re there between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., so they are there at 6 or 7,” she said.

“It’s gotten worse in the ten years that I’ve been here.”

For more information about donating to Disabled American Veterans, visit www.dav.org or call 800-238-8387.