ERIE -- The music was thumping. The fly-overs were roaring. The food was sizzling. The mood at Spirit of Flight Center's biggest fundraising event of the year Saturday was peaking.
Then about $2,700 in donations and sales suddenly went walking.
Gordon Page, president of the nonprofit vintage aircraft museum in Erie, said the money was stolen from two cash boxes at the event, which was held at the Erie Municipal Airport. He has spent much of the time since trying to recoup the museum's losses.
"I'm in George Bailey mode (the main character from 'It's a Wonderful Life') and I'm just trying to get some additional donations from individuals," Page said. "We're all volunteer, no paid staff. This was our biggest fundraiser of the year -- to keep this jewel of the community going -- and then someone takes advantage of that."
Page said the museum was planning to use the proceeds from the Spirit of Flight Day to pay its property tax bill. The museum, which holds a collection of restored aircraft and aviation-related artifacts going back decades, has an annual operating budget of $75,000.
The Spirit of Flight Center raised about $10,000 on Saturday, Page said, but $4,000 was spent to put on the fundraiser, which featured a beer garden, a jumping castle and a live band. Then there was the $2,700 loss.
"It's like having a birthday party and you blow out the candles and then someone punches you in the gut," he said.
To add insult to injury, Page said, someone broke into Vector Air's building Saturday night and took $250 in petty cash from the aircraft maintenance outfit. It's not known if the Spirit of Flight thefts are connected to the break-in at Vector, but company owner Jason Hurd said part of the fundraiser was held on the lawn in front of his building.
"It puts a damper on what was otherwise a great event," Hurd said. "It was a bummer that 99.9 percent of the people were here for the right reasons."
About 1,500 people attended Spirit of Flight Day on Saturday.
Erie police Lt. Lee Mathis said a window was broken at Vector to gain access to the inside of the building. He said the investigation into the weekend thefts continues.
"Lots of times, when you have stolen cash, it's hard to pinpoint a suspect," he said.
A break-in also occurred at Vance Brand Airport in Longmont over the weekend. Airport Manager Tim Barth said that on Sunday night, a thief or thieves broke a window, entered his office and stole a city-issued laptop. They also struck a business on the first floor, taking cash, an iPod, aviation headsets and tools.
A hangar and an RV were also broken into at the airport, with gasoline, tools and radios stolen, Barth said.
Longmont police Cmdr. Jeff Satur said the criminal activity at two nearby airports on the same weekend is "unusual," but he hadn't examined the cases enough to see if there might be a connection.
Kim Kobel, a Boulder police spokeswoman, said there was no similar incident at the Boulder Municipal Airport over the weekend.
Dee Martz, who has volunteered at the Spirit of Flight Center for four years, said nothing like what occurred Saturday has happened at any other fundraising event the museum has put on.
"To have someone take from a charity organization is appalling," she said. "I'm very shocked."
She said the museum will have to be more careful about how it secures cash at the events.
Page acknowledged that oversight of the cash boxes wasn't as good as it could have been. Changes, he said, will be made in terms of money collection and storage in the future.
"It was the first year we've ever had it at the Erie airport and of this magnitude," he said. "It was made easy for (the thieves) because there were a lot of distractions."
Page was happy to report Tuesday that he has already received about $1,500 in small-denomination pledges from donors to fill in the deficit created by the theft.
"If we can get $20 at a time, I'm a happy guy," he said.
http://www.timescall.com/news/longmont-local-news/ci_21199683/nearly-3-000-stolen-at-weekend-fundraiser-eries
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