East Bay nonprofit delivering meals to seniors targeted by vandals 3 times in 1 week

SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (KGO) -- An East Bay non-profit is scrambling to make sure hundreds of senior citizens receive Thanksgiving meals after they were targeted by vandals three times in the past week.

SOS Meals on Wheels delivers 1,800 meals daily to seniors in eight communities in Alameda County, but they are down three refrigerated vans after they were vandalized.

"Overnight, someone's coming here, and they're crawling underneath our vans and drilling into our gas tanks and draining them of all of the gas that's in there, and then we can't use that vehicle," said Executive Director Charlie Deterline. "We have to order a new part. We have to wait for the new part. We have to pay for it to get fixed."

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Deterline said this has happened before, costing them between $16,000 and $20,000 this year alone.

"That's just the monetary cost," Deterline said. "The real cost is how many fewer deliveries we might be able to make, and how much less time our staff and our volunteers are able to spend on each visit with the older adults that we're supposed to be visiting with, having meaningful interactions with each day."

Thankfully, Deterline says it hasn't kept them from delivering meals but seniors may not get them on their scheduled days and the nonprofit has to do more with less time.

"San Leandro Police is aware of this being an ongoing issue," Deterline said. "They've increased patrols, especially at night and on weekends and long holiday weekends. It helps a lot of the time, but it doesn't help always."

If you want to help, Deterline says the best way is to volunteer your time. You can also donate money. For more information go to their website.