An Auckland charity is reeling after having nearly $20,000 worth of equipment stolen from them.
Repair Cafe is a pop-up charity truck that travels around the city repairing and recycling broken goods.
Global Action Plan Oceania director Andrew Walters is one of the people behind the Devonport-based initiative. He said thieves used bolt cutters to break into the truck and steal all of the tools.
"The police said it was premeditated, they were wearing gloves and they would have needed a vehicle to take all the stuff away," he said. "They came with bolt cutters to cut the fence, and to do it all properly, it wasn't just a chance thing."
He said the thieves completely cleared out the trailer, leaving only the sign behind.
After breaking into the truck, the thieves then moved onto the neighbouring Ngataringa Community Gardens.
"Then they proceed to cut the locks off and steal lawn mowers and tools from the community garden as well."
Walters said the team and community are gutted after the event.
"To rob from a charity and to rob from a community garden, well it's lower than a snake's testicles, it really is, it's not on."
The thieves stole between $15,000 and $20,000 worth of tools, which they are trying to claim back on insurance. Another $1000 was taken from the community garden, Walters said.
He said they are still figuring out how to move forward from the event, but for now have had to cancel their upcoming events.
"We're not thrilled. We have events booked in the future for July so we have had to let them know that we can't lend them the tools."
"We run about 40 events across Auckland. We just run them to extend the life of goods and we work with volunteers to fix things," he said.
Following the robbery, the charity has received many offers to help.
"Our community has been quite supportive in terms of asking if they can donate tools and things, but we are telling people not to donate because they [the stolen tools] are all quite high-end specialist tools," he said.
"We welcome people's thoughts and sympathy, but we don't want to be in a position where we have lots of old tools from well-wishers."
"I don't want people to have to put their hands in their pockets if we can do it through our insurance first."
He said they are hoping to combine with some other repair charities and possibly get a sponsor.
"We are going to work with some of the other organisations that have run repair cafes and see if we can find a way to centralises all the tools across the region so people can just come and borrow the tools they need."
"What we really need to is to find a sponsor that wants to put their name to this trailer that can replace it and do something different and better than before," he said.
Newshub.
