A charity that runs a project for parents in Swansea to buy recycled school uniforms at cut prices has been broken into and trashed.
The thieves used a rock to smash the glass in the doorway of the unit used by the charity at St David's Shopping Centre in Swansea in the early hours of the morning.
Donated raffle prizes, including jewellery worth £60, were stolen as well as food from the fridge, an electric heater and the irons used by the volunteers when cleaning the donated school uniforms.
Office equipment was thrown around and the contents of drawers were searched and left on the floor. The three computers in the office were not taken, but the thieves took one of twenty TV wall brackets that had been given to the charity to sell.
"I don't understand why they would target a charity, you look through the windows and all you see is a couple of computers and some school uniforms," said Sharon Rouse, who co-runs the project and was first on the scene this morning.
"They only got away with about £40 in raffle money and £20 from selling the uniforms, but that's a lot to us. And it's not only us, all small charities are struggling at the moment.
"We're trying to help people here, please leave us alone,"
"I just wanted to walk away when I saw what they'd done but I thought, 'I can't let this beat me."
A city warden called Mrs Rouse to tell her there had been a break-in and waited for her to arrive and make sure the thieves had left the scene.
The charity has been doing a range of fundraising since it was set up in May, most recently Mrs Rouse and four other women over 60 did a sponsored swim in Neath , where they raised over £1000 to help women in the community.
They are appealing for people to donate items to replace the raffle prizes that were stolen and are continuing to look for volunteers from the community for their uniform and loneliness projects.
GROW can be contacted on 01792 712888 and is open 10am-3pm weekdays at Unit 12, St David's Shopping Centre, Princess Way, Swansea.
A South Wales Police spokeswoman said: "At about 9.35am on Wednesday, October 9, we received a report of a break-in at a premises in St David’s Square, Swansea.
Investigations are ongoing and anyone with information should contact 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 quoting occurrence 1900373472."
