Local charity vandalized overnight

The office of a local charity was ransacked overnight in Rancho Mirage.

Advisers from Centro Religare said the nonprofit works to help people build self-esteem, work through problems and become the better version of themselves.

Wednesday morning charity organizers were shocked by what they saw when they opened their doors.

Everything inside their office at the Atrium in Rancho Mirage was taken out of the cabinets and thrown on the floor. Two laptops were stolen.

Wednesday afternoon police conducted a forensics investigation in an effort to find out who committed the crime.

Advisers said they can’t think of anyone who would do this.

“Because it is an organization that really is here to help other people, you just can’t grip yourself around it. I just don’t understand why someone would want to come to a place that is actually trying to help you and do something like this,” said Angelic Valdez, who is on the board of advisers.

Valdez said this break-in will not stop them from continuing their work. She also said they do not have plans to move out.

“It was just an atrocious scene. We’re hurt because of what we see but we’re still here to serve our purpose. We are a nonprofit organization, we help people with self-esteem issues, we help people communicate better with family, we don’t deal with money, we only have volunteers, so really we don’t know what happened,” Valdez said.

Valdez and her co-workers spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the office.