Staff at The Beacon Therapeutic Center have spent decades helping some of the most vulnerable children in Chicago, but after a holiday burglary stunned the center, the good they’ve done for others is being returned in an unexpected way.
The school for at-risk children was burglarized over the weekend with thieves stealing and damaging many of the silent auction items for their annual holiday fundraiser set for next week.
“This is something that’s never happened before,” said CEO Susan Reyna-Guerrero. “We’ve had other break-ins but nothing this significant. The baskets, they just mean so much.”
The center is located in the Beverly neighborhood on 106th and Longwood, has been helping Chicago’s most disadvantaged children for 46 years.
“I kept thinking we can get through this,” said Director of Development Peggy Rourke. “Nobody got hurt and we’ll pick ourselves up and get back in the game tomorrow.”
The center posted about the break-in on Facebook Monday and in the days following, donations began pouring in.
Since the burglary, all 40 stolen gift baskets have been replaced.
Local
“We are truly grateful for your gift hope to continue and work through these challenging times for our families and children and it spite of all that’s going wrong there’s so much more going right,” Rourke said.
