Bethel
“If someone came to us and said they needed 20 bucks, we would have given them 20 bucks,” said Tom Hardy, pastor at the United Church of Bethel, also known as the White Church, where the food pantry is located.
While no items were stolen, whoever broke into the building did “quite a bit of damage,” Hardy said. “I wish they had needed food because we’d have given it to them.”
Four of the building’s doors were damaged, Hardy said, with an estimated $5,000 in repairs needed. While the church has insurance, the deductible is high.
In news release, Vermont State Police said the building likely was burglarized between 6 p.m. on Jan. 18 and 7:40 a.m. on Jan. 19. As of Saturday, a suspect had not been identified.
“What it is, is damage to a historic building,” Hardy said, noting that the church is on the National Register of Historic Places. Therefore, it’s not as simple as going to a hardware store to find replacement doors.
“It gets expensive in a hurry,” Hardy said, and the church is also considering other upgrades. “Unfortunately it’s going to cause us another expense to put in a security system.”
But despite the costs, Hardy is not asking the community to donate money to fix the doors. The food shelf, however, is always accepting donations of nonperishable items and is in particular need of canned meat, tuna, peanut butter, pet food and toiletries.
“When people need food, it would be unfair for us to ask for funding to fix the building,” Hardy said.
“The building is very secondary. The real work is the mission of the food shelf and we’ll muddle through.”
The Bethel Area Food Shelf is located at 129 Church St. and is open Mondays, from noon-2 p.m., and Wednesdays, from 4-6 p.m.
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at 603-727-3221 or esauchelli@vnews.com.
