One of the city's most popular soup kitchens has been forced to temporarily close. Metal thieves took compressors from walk-in freezers and forced the Holy Family soup kitchen to throw away thousands of dollars of food meant for some of the city's hungry.
On some days the west side soup kitchen serves as many as one-thousand at its daily hot lunch. Director Frances Carr says meat, fish, frozen vegetables, desserts, all food donated to the soup kitchen, spoiled after compressors located outside the building were cut away and stolen.
"We've had to shut down completely because there's no way for us to keep food without the freezers and compressors, you know, there's just no way." Says Carr.
Carr estimates $90,000 worth of food spoiled. On Wednesday, she turned away regulars who had shown up for a mid-day meal.
"I announced that we had to be closed and why we had to be closed and they were devastated. A lot of them cried,excuse me....this is very hard for me....they wanted to find out who did it." Says Carr.
Carr adds that she's working to replace the compressors. but she's uncertain when food will be served again at the Holy Family Soup Kitchen.
Tom Borgerding WOSU News.