ORANGE PARK, Fla. — Nearly $15,000 of memorabilia was stolen from inside a trailer at the Jimmie Van Zant charity last Friday morning.
Many of those items were irreplaceable, but thanks to the community they were still able to pull the event off.
While they raised more than they thought, it wasn’t even close to what it should’ve been.
Local News: A JFRD firefighter and family lose their home to fire
“To know the loss it caused us, it’s hard to come back from it,” said Joey Willut, Vice President and treasurer of the charity. “Takes your breath away just to think about, it’s awful.”
New photos from the Orange Park Police Department show the trailer attached to the back of a silver SUV at the Days Inn in Orange Park; police say they believe it’s an Acura MDX.
In the images you can see the driver-side wheel is different from the rest of the vehicle, something that sticks out in hopes the public can help identify the SUV.
Members say they expected to raise over $30,000 at the auction, but came up well short of that, only reaching around $3,000.
“We had huge hopes for this, and all this happen and it just destroyed all hope we had,” said Joey Nichols, president of the charity.
Signed Lynyrd Skynyrd items were among the timeless items taken, all of which were to be auctioned to help raise money for child cancer research.
Now, a GoFundMe has been created with a $24,000 goal as they try to recover from the damage.
Local News: K9s United to host annual 9K for K9s
“We’re trying to figure some way to salvage this,” Nichols said. “This has been over a year of planning and putting together.”
The members tell Action News Jax another event might come as soon as November to help make up for the loss, but first things first, they’re hoping to get the trailer back.
Cox Media Group
