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Trailer Loaded With Nearly 100,000 Meals For Homeless Veterans Stolen

A trailer filled with some 97,000 meals meant to feed homeless veterans was stolen from a nonprofit organization in Kansas this weekend.

According to Fox10 Phoenix, the 5-by-8-foot trailer was snatched from the parking lot of the headquarters for Friends in Service of Heroes (F.I.S.H.) in Lenexa, Kansas.

Members of the organization estimate it was stolen sometime between 8 p.m. Sunday night and Monday morning.

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The trailer was jam-packed with 12,100 meal packets. Each packet makes eight meals, totaling nearly 97,000 meals bound for hungry, homeless vets.

Organizers planned to deliver the food to the Kansas City VA Medical Center on November 21.

F.I.S.H.founder and president Paul Chapa expressed disbelief at the theft.

Unsplash | Milos Tonchevski

"What kind of a person would do this?" he told Fox10 Phoenix. "It was a big deal for us. I mean 12,100 meals just taken. What a punch in the gut that was."

He added that it took about 60 volunteers working in shifts over four hours to create, pack, and load the meals into the trailer.

Although the meal packages are now gone, Chapa said the organization has no plans on cancelling their surprise delivery.

Unsplash | Lucas Sankey

"We're doing everything we can to fix this," he said. "I don't want our vets to suffer so we're going to figure something out."

He added, "The vets have no idea that this is going to happen — we just do these things. A lot of the veterans we serve are those who never ask for help."

A GoFundMe campaign has been established to replace the stolen food. The Lenexa Police Department is currently investigating the theft.

h/t: Fox10 Phoenix

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