$170,000 in goods stolen from nonprofit

SOUTH GLENDALE — Ara Hambardzumyan doesn’t understand why burglars targeted his nonprofit organization, International Families Assn., stealing more than $170,000 worth of goods that would have gone to 5,000 local families.

Hambardzumyan locked up the organization’s facility on the 1700 block of Gardena Avenue on July 3, went on vacation for the Fourth of July weekend and returned 7 a.m. Monday to discover an empty building, he said.

“I opened the gates and saw everything was missing,” said Hambardzumyan, the nonprofit’s director.

Burglars cracked open the facility’s garage lock and stole eight loading pallets with goods worth $171,105, according to a Glendale Police Department report.

The pallets included $54,000 in razors, $51,000 in razor cartridges, $41,310 in toothbrush heads, $13,455 in batteries and $11,340 in mint gum, according to the report.

The burglars then used the nonprofit’s 1991 GMC loading truck as an escape vehicle.

The loss was a devastating blow to the organization, which provides food and toiletries to low-income families, including children and seniors, in Glendale, Hollywood and North Hollywood, Hambardzumyan said.

“I am confused,” he said.

The organization moved into the Gardena Avenue building more than five years ago because, he said, it was a safe neighborhood.

But the environment has changed recently, Hambardzumyan said, adding that he has noticed more police activity in a neighborhood mostly occupied by warehouses, senior housing and the city’s transit center.

“Everybody knows us here,” he said.

Hambardzumyan, a Glendale resident, began working with the organization 10 years ago because he enjoys helping people in need.

Hambardzumyan often opens the doors to his organization, sets out bags containing goods in the driveway and allows people to take the bags. He and his volunteers also deliver the goods to families and seniors.

The theft, he said, will have an adverse effect on how much the organization can provide to families.

The nonprofit Glendale Healthy Kids, which links low-income children to free health-care services, doesn’t carry large quantities of items at its facility, said Camille Levee, the group’s executive director.

But, she said, a loss of $170,000 worth of materials would hurt any organization, especially during a recession in which nonprofits everywhere are struggling to make ends meet amid high demand for services.

PATH Achieve, the city’s largest nonprofit organization serving the homeless, is a few blocks away from International Families Assn. and is under 24-hour surveillance to ensure its clients are safe at night, Executive Director Natalie Profant Komuro said.

The theft was disappointing because the International Families Assn. was trying to do good work by helping families, she said.

“It’s such a violation.”