Toys, gift donations stolen from Shrewsbury church

SHREWSBURY, Mass. (WHDH) -- Police are looking for a Grinch who stole toys and clothing donated to a Shrewsbury church.

Officials said someone broke into a locked storage shed at Saint Anne's and made off with thousands of dollars in holiday gifts meant for needy families.

The church hoped more donations would come in before Christmas so that those families can still have a bright holiday.

“I cried when I saw it, because so much work went into it,” said Elaine Driscoll, volunteer director.

Hundreds of donated toys, clothing, and gift cards were taken from the Shrewsbury church's storage shed. The gifts were meant for more than 600 children in the community.

“Why would somebody be so mean? I mean if they needed something just come to the church, we'd give it to them,” said Driscoll.

The church staff says someone kicked in the door to the shed sometime within the past couple of days, but they only found out Tuesday.

“They didn't realize it was broken into because door was closed,” said Pastor John Foley, Saint Anne’s Parish.

“The sad thing is we had this locked elsewhere before and everything was getting moved in here,” said Driscoll.

The toys were part of the parish's "giving tree" program. Parishioners would take name tags from the church tree. The tags told the Christmas wishes of young children.

“At first I said, ‘What are we going to do?’ because there's so many kids,” said Joseph Zecco, parish administrator.

Shrewsbury police are investigating. It's unclear if the thieves targeted the shed, but it was the first time it's been broken into.

Parishioners say they'll make sure everyone gets the Christmas they deserve.

“Knowing the way this parish operates, we always seem to bounce back pretty good. I have a lot of faith and my faith says we're going to recover, somehow,” said Zecco.

Now the church has to figure out which child corresponds to the stolen gifts so they can make sure every child gets what they want for Christmas.

Fortunately, there's still a couple of weeks left so they're hoping to replace all of the gifts.