Tulsa Non-Profit Loses Van To Theft

A local non-profit hopes you can help find their stolen van. The group uses it to help people who are down on their luck.

Someone stole the van from a parking spot behind the Indian Health Care Resource Center in the middle of the day, and the worst part is that it was full of donations.

The white 1995 model sport van may not look like much, but to the non-profit group Isaiah 58: In His Service, it means everything.

"We could deliver furniture, we could pick up donations, we take people to church on Sunday's, that sort of thing. So, it's a big loss to the ministry," said Isiah 58’s Deni Fholer. 

Fholer is a crisis worker at the Indian Health Care Resource Center.

When she's off work, she's helping the needy, homeless, and addicted.

"The irony of the whole thing is that if I knew the guy and he just came to me and asked me for help, I would do what I can to help him," Fholer said. 

Just yesterday, Fholer was working when someone called her in a panic.

"So I came running back here and then I find out, they go, ‘oh, by the way, your van is gone’," Fholer said. 

"One of the doctors actually saw it happen, there was a young person in a hoodie, a dark hoodie, walking in the parking lot," she said. "So he broke out the driver’s side window and within a matter of seconds had it started and drove out of the parking lot."

Tulsa police said thieves have stolen more two 2,000 vehicles since the beginning of the year and that number is only expected to go up.

"We hover around 4,000 car thefts a year, give or take, and that is a high number," said Tulsa Police Sergeant Shane Tuell. 

Fholer said she hopes the thief will do the right thing and return the van.

Police said that's not likely.

"In a perfect world, you would love to have that bad guy that all of the sudden has an ethical hammer hit him over the head and they decide, ‘I'm going to take this car back’ but generally that does not happen," said Sergeant Tuell.