On my way into work this morning, I heard Pam Altmeyer, president and chief executive officer of Gleaners, the state's largest food bank, on the radio talking about her weekend. Thieves stole copper pipe from the state's largest food bank over the weekend, knocking out the freezer and cool rooms and potentially spoiling thousands of pounds of food. Gleaners serves more than 300,000 needy Hoosiers through more than 400 pantries and charities in 20 Central Indiana counties.

After this weekend's theft, a 30,000-cubic-foot "cooler room" and two 40,000-cubic-foot freezers lost all refrigeration. Among the items lost: 3,482 cases of dairy products, 1,860 cases of half-pints of milk and 48,743 cases of produce. In all, 54,892 cases of frozen foods were in jeopardy, including 233 cases of deer meat and 63 turkeys. The cost of the theft could reach $464,000 in food, plus at least $20,000 for immediate repairs being made Monday to get just one of the freezer rooms back on line.

How low will people go? To steal from the most needy in your own community, who are mostly elderly and young children, is pretty low. But, these types of situations do bring out the best in people. Kroger is donating at least $70,000 and possibly as much as $80,000 to Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana. Also, three Indianapolis radio stations partnering with Marsh Supermarkets plan charity fund-raisers starting around 5 a.m. tomorrow. Marsh is donating food and refrigerated trucks so people can bring in perishables. They can also make monetary donations there or at any Fifth-Third bank branch.

If you'd like to help Gleaners with a monetary or food donation, call Darren Boyd at (317) 925-0191, ext. 108.