Two weekends ago, about 1,000 pounds of food were stolen from an outdoor storage unit Youth On Their Own was using to store donated non-perishables.
To prepare for summer each year, the nonprofit serving homeless teens stockpiles food in anticipation of fewer donors and greater need. During the summer, students are unable to fall back on school-provided breakfasts and lunches.
The lead-up to this summer looked good. Spring collections brought in so many donations that Youth On Their Own, 1660 N. Alvernon Way, started storing items in a unit outside of the building so that boxes wouldn't line the halls.
But on the morning of Monday, April 10, staff discovered that someone had raided the storage unit over the weekend.
"All I can say is when this happened, we were all disheartened," says Kristyn Conner, the director of development for Youth On Their Own. "It was not fun to be here on Monday morning, and you think, 'Who would do this and steal food from a storage container marked for homeless kids?'"
The Tucson Police Department is still investigating, Conner says.
The Mini-Mall is part of Youth On Their Own's three-pronged approach to helping homeless kids stay in school — providing guidance, financial services and basic needs.
Each week, students can "shop" the Mini-Mall, taking one of each item they need and up to 10 pounds of food. If a student can't make it to the nonprofit's physical location, they can request to have supplies delivered to their school.
"The Mini-Mall sees traffic from 80 to 100 homeless students in a week," Conner says.
Youth On Their Own serves middle and high school students, grades 6 to 12, under the age of 22. These are kids with no stable home and no choice in the matter.
A student shops at the Mini-Mall at Youth On Their Own, 1660 N. Alvernon Way.
Last summer, the nonprofit had to reduce the amount of food teens could take to seven pounds as a shortage loomed, Conner adds.
"It's awesome to see the office overflowing, but in the end we know that the summer can be dry, and we don't want to run into a problem like last summer," she says of the well-stocked shelves inside.
Since the break-in, the community has donated both goods and money for the purpose of restocking the Mini-Mall, but for now, Youth On Their Own is asking for the community to hold off on immediately donating.
"Right now our issue is storage," Conner says. "The entire reason the items were outside in the first place was because we were having some storage issues, so right now we are trying to put more strict security measures in place to make sure that any future donations will not be stolen. ... Hopefully by the end of April we'll begin accepting donations again. We're hoping we can replenish what was lost in time for summer break and before our supporters leave town."
Until then, the nonprofit suggests that those who wish to help organize a food drive and deliver the collections once Youth On Their Own has solved the storage situation.
"We're so lucky to be in this community and in Tucson, because of the community members who have supported our students in the past week have turned this terrible situation into an uplifting thing," Conner says "We have high hopes."
