NEW MEXICO COMPUTERS AND HARD DRIVES STOLEN The News-Bulletin: Computers, hard-drives stolen from Habitat office sets back charitable effortsComputers, hard-drives stolen from Habitat office sets back charitable efforts


Haley Wachdorf News-Bulletin Staff Writer; hwachdorf@news-bulletin.com

Los Lunas The weekend burglary of Habitat for Humanity of Valencia County's office has left staff of the charitable organization disheartened and unable to finish projects contained in computer hard-drives taken in the theft.

According to Habitat Executive Director Kevin Cronk, seven computer towers, several computer monitors, a television and VCR and a digital camera were among the items stolen sometime on Saturday night from the office located in the organization's Placitas No. 5 subdivision. The equipment is worth approximately $12,000, but the information contained in the stolen computers is priceless, Cronk said.

"There are years of work on (the computers)" he said. "There's nothing harmful to anyone in terms of donor information out there, that is secure, and the same thing with our homeowners. But the labor-intensive stuff of forms and documents and contact logs and things that you just can't put a dollar value on is gone. And it's taken staff hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of work."

Cronk said that while some of the lost data had been backed up in case of an emergency, there are no backups for some projects and, unless the computers are returned, Habitat staff will have to recreate months of documentation.

According to a report from the Valencia County Sheriff's Office, the intruders broke into the office by removing a screen and prying open a window. The report also states that a box of master keys was taken.

"The chances are that this stuff was probably sold before it was even stolen and it's somewhere in this community and there are parents out there that have kids who have new computers that just showed up and no idea where they came from," he said. "I'm hoping some parents might call up and say 'This just showed up at my house.' We just want them back. I don't care if they show up on the doorstep. We are pretty sure it was ... done for money, and it just hurt a lot of people. Everyone here works really hard to help families, and this just hurts the people that we're trying to help."

Cronk said this is the first time the office has been broken into.

"It's extremely depressing," he said. "We've never had an issue like this come up in 10 years. We've had tools stolen, up to $5,000 worth of tools, but we didn't make a public issue out of it, we just said we'll replace the tools and move on and pray for the person that took them. But this just violates everyone."

Habitat staffer Gayle Romeo said the office was locked by workers at around 4 p.m. on Saturday. A member of the staff who lives in a home in the subdivision discovered the theft Sunday morning on his way to church when he noticed the cart for a television sitting in the middle of the street and the front door open