‘Overwhelmed with gratitude’

After thieves stole from The Salvation Army, the Kona community came together to help.

BY VIVIAN LOPEZ

Every day Salvation Army Kona Corps Officers Captains Jose and Raghel Santiago check the storage area at corps in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. But on July 29, after they had been away due to COVID-19 exposure, Jose Santiago found the storage had been broken into. Thousands of dollars worth of donations had been stolen.

“It was really devastating,” said Raghel Santiago, adding that more than $5,000 worth of items were taken—including all the school supplies they were going to distribute to families during a back-to-school event that weekend. Canned goods for the corps’ food distribution program, coolers used for outreach to those experiencing homelessness and gardening tools were also stolen.

The Santiagos had never experienced anything like this in their five years at the Kona Corps. They reached out to The Salvation Army Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Divisional Headquarters (DHQ) to let them know what happened, and the DHQ media team helped them get the word out to local news stations.

“It was all over the news,” Raghel Santiago said. “That is how the community found out.”

On the Sunday after the break-in, donations started coming in from the community to replace the stolen items.

“We live in a great community because as soon as they heard, they gave donations right away,” said Carolen Richey, a Kona Corps volunteer who helped shop for the original back-toschool items. “Our community came together, and that’s great.”

Raghel Santiago said during testimony time in the corps’ church service, one person came and donated about

$600 worth of school supplies. Another individual the Santiagos knew gave them a $1,000 check. The donations kept coming in.

“People just stepped up and said, ‘How can we help?’ and they started coming to the office to donate, whether it was monetary or canned goods or school supplies,” she said.

Donations came in from outside of the community, too. Raghel Santiago said people from as far as Sacramento, California, donated.