Y kids’ slush funds stolen

LYNN – Students in the Greater Lynn YMCA’s after-school childcare program were robbed of a summer’s worth of hard work last weekend when vandals made off with a stash of change that students raised by selling slush on hot days.Program Director Tony Bellerose said Tuesday that someone broke into and vandalized the school aged program office, tossing papers around the room and coating the walls and floors with obscenities. The responsible parties also attempted to break into a supply closet and a safe containing checks from parents.Worst of all, while rummaging through desk drawers, the assailants came across $115 in small bills and pocket change that the students had raised this summer through their own fundraising efforts.”It was just something where we’d sell slush for a quarter, and we used some of the money to buy more slush, but the thing is the money was from the kids. They bought the slush from each other, so it was kind of for the kids from the kids,” said Bellerose. “We hadn’t even decided what we were going to use it for.”Police are investigating the robbery, which took place some time between 5 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday, and say there were no signs of forced entry, meaning the people responsible may have known how to get in the building.Bellerose says he and his staff have a few suspects in mind, based on some other incidents that have taken place in the past, and have passed along the names to police for investigation.”It was definitely some young kids looking to destroy some stuff, it is just pretty unfortunate that it had to happen,” he said. “I have a few hunches and I gave the names to police. I have a pretty good idea who it might be, I know they are innocent until proven guilty, so that may just be the anger talking.”While the children were disappointed to learn that their money had gone missing, Bellerose said the most important thing is that no one was hurt.”I sat down and talked about it with the kids, you know, they were pretty disappointed. They asked why someone would want to do that or ‘who would do something like that,'” he said. “But I told them the most important thing is that no one was here and no one was hurt. Material things can always be replaced.”