Employees at Rescued Treasures thrift store knew they had to be open on Memorial Day, despite what happened early Sunday morning.
A woman broke a glass window, went inside the store, and damaged quite a bit of property, including a cash register.
But Visalia Police responded quickly and arrested 26-year-old Brittany Lunsford inside.
They say she had been filling up a large bag with store items.
“It costs us,” said Visalia Rescue Mission Executive Director Al Oliver. “We don’t want it to happen. We don’t want our weekend disrupted, like anybody else. But I have to say we have a fantastic staff. (The) people that work for us are just devoted to this place and its success, so it got cleaned up and secured very quickly.”
The Visalia Rescue Mission, a non-profit, faith-based organization that provides shelter and a variety of services to people in need.
Revenue from its Rescued Treasures store supports their drug and alcohol recovery program, which had 22 graduates last year.
Many of the store’s employees are graduates of that program
Oliver says they’ve had break-ins here before; it’s fairly common in the shopping center.
He just hopes the suspect in this case decides to get help-maybe from them.
“What you did was wrong, and you’re sitting in jail now, and you’re going to bear the consequences of it,” Oliver said. “But when that’s done, come see us. We’d like for you to have some redemption in your life. I mean that’s why we exist.”
Lunsford has several misdemeanor drug offenses and a felony assault conviction last fall.