Mt. Olive: Theft of Easter Breakfast Funds

I am writing this letter out of anger and frustration and addressing it to the individuals that broke into Mt. Olive Lutheran Church March 25 and stole $500 from our Easter Pancake Breakfast for Mt. Olive Preschool. I want to make sure you know who you took the money from and how much it meant to us.

Mt. Olive is a nonprofit preschool and day-care center. It serves 200 families in the Santa Monica/Westside area. For 20 years, it has provided high-quality programs at an affordable cost to children ages 2-7 years old. Mt. Olive’s staff has a genuinely caring and nurturing nature. They are what truly make it an excellent school.

The money we raise from the Easter breakfast assists us in updating aging facilities, purchasing play equipment and educational toys for our classrooms.

Our only hope is that you truly needed the money more than our children did. That stolen money represented a lot of hard work on the part of our parent volunteers. It was difficult to serve breakfast Saturday morning, as we knew all our effort was in vain. Our expenses would not be recovered. Our breakfast was not raising funds for the school. Instead we were explaining to our 3- and 4-year-olds why the police had come to take fingerprints, and why someone would steal from the school.

What should have been a fun-filled memory of an Easter tradition for our kids, turned out to be a reminder that there are some really bad people in this world.

CLAIRE FRANCIS-HOLLAND

Mt. Olive Preschool

Room Parents Assn.