The director of a charity in the UK that provides toys to Romanian orphans pledged to “carry on” despite the theft of the charity’s only forklift.
The theft occurred December 10 at the headquarters of Convoy Aid, which is based in Stockton. The vehicle, which was valued at $10,586 was stolen along with various other tools. Volunteers used the vehicle to load trucks with shoeboxes full of toys donated by British schoolchildren.
Rob Jones, the founder and director of Convoy Aid, said that while the theft of the forklift was a setback, it wasn’t going to stop him from continuing to try to help orphans, even if less aid can be supplied as a result.
“With extreme work we might be able to get the boxes filled and put on the pallets, but then the wagons will come,” Jones told the Northern Echo newspaper. “But we just can’t give up. We can’t let these people win. There’s people who need us. e had a small charity, getting the right amount of aid to the right people. We’ll have to scale down, but we can’t give up.”
The forklift had been “sold” to the charity for the nominal sum of a few pounds by the Linde Forklift company. It replaced another forklift that the company had lent to the charity on a regular basis.