Seniors’ charitable work ends up in thief’s pocket

When you think you’ve heard it all, regarding thefts from Boy Scouts, soccer clubs and the like, along comes a thief who steals from a bunch of senior citizens.

Some creep stole the receipts from the Snohomish Senior Center’s Dec. 3 Saturday breakfast.

“The center has hosted this once a month fundraiser for two years,” said Joanne Hiersch, one of the members. “This was the largest group ever. Over 176 hungry folks came for breakfast.”

Snohomish Senior Center, like most senior centers, holds fundraising activities to support overhead costs. Volunteers, who Hiersch said include mostly grandmothers and great-grandmothers, have loyally gotten up before dawn to start cooking the biscuits and gravy, pancakes, French toast, ham, and scrambled eggs that are served every first Saturday of the month.

The first Saturday of December was a record day.

“The volunteers went home happy but very tired. To find out that someone could be so callous and just down-right mean, they took that all away in a flash. The thief made off with other monies from the center as well.”

Hiersch said the Snohomish Senior Center is mostly a self-sustaining organization. For four plus years, the Community Service Sewing Program has worked with volunteer groups around Puget Sound.

“Together we have made, donated and delivered over 10,000 quilts to our wounded servicemen and women in Afghanistan and Iraq. We learned that for every death there are 25 wounded. All this good work was accomplished with community donations and thousands of volunteer sewing hours.”

They have also made and donated lap quilts to nursing homes, children’s sleepwear to Matthew House in Monroe and hundreds of trauma dolls for Snohomish Health District.

The quilting group makes and donates a quilt each year to be raffled at the annual Christmas Bazaar.

They will have to get busy fundraising at the center, she said, to make up for the more than $1,000 that was stolen this month.

For more information, call the center at 360-568-0934.

Hiersch said she would tell the thief to “remember how your deed impacted hundreds of grandmothers and grandfathers.”

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The Mountlake Terrace 29th Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony was a happy affair. The event featured the Terrace Park School Choir singing carols, a tree lighting, and a visit from Santa, who made his grand entrance on a Snohomish Fire District 1 fire truck.

Santa stayed and met with children while parents took photos.

Matthew Lentz, 9, switched on Christmas lights from a remote control device located at Evergreen Playfield. He pushed the button and the “tree,” located on top of the city’s water tower, came alive with more than 1,800 blue LED lights.

Eagle Scout Evan Patrick was honored for building the stage used during the event. Volunteers served cookies, hot coffee and cocoa to more than 600 visitors.

Cash donations were accepted for the Michelle Ringler Recreation Scholarship Fund and the Manu Sood Mountlake Terrace Arts Commission Scholarship. Since 2002, the Recreation Fund has helped more than 400 children register for recreation programs at the Mountlake Terrace Recreation Pavilion. The Manu Sood scholarship supports an annual scholarship for arts students at Mountlake Terrace High School.

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Danny Bonaduce has a new radio show at 102.5 KZOK in Seattle. Last Wednesday, he asked listeners to call in about the worst job they ever had. A gentleman said he worked in Everett 31 years ago where discarded tires were stacked by the freeway.

The caller said it was his job to climb to the top of a pile, remove a tire and dump out the stagnant, disgusting water and debris inside so the tire could be loaded on a truck for transporting to be crushed for new tires.

For an unknown reason, Bonaduce mentioned there is nothing worse than a tire fire.

Little did the former star of “The Partridge Family,” a newcomer to Seattle, know that the Everett stack caught fire in 1984 and burned for more than a year.

Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451, oharran@heraldnet.com.