Keep Mesquite Beautiful Inc. is asking for its supplies back after a theft at Paschall Park left the nonprofit without equipment used for community cleanup and beautification work. The organization estimates that the stolen property was worth more than $10,000. Mesquite police are investigating and searching for those responsible for breaking into its trailers.
Police said the theft occurred sometime between Friday afternoon and Monday morning. According to the nonprofit, someone cut the locks on two trailers following a community event and removed landscaping equipment along with tables, chairs, tents and other project supplies. The items supported the organization's work to clean up and beautify the community.
Executive Director Jonathan Chitty said the nonprofit had accumulated its equipment over a period of years and depends on fundraising to support its activities. He described the discovery as both shocking and devastating. “I couldn't believe that someone would come and take from a nonprofit,” Chitty said.
The missing supplies also affect work carried out through the organization's partnerships with Mesquite ISD schools. Its Green Team program provides materials that students use to clean up their campuses, extending the nonprofit's resources beyond the events it organizes itself. Volunteer and teacher Victoria Lopez described the theft as “a big setback.”
Lopez said the organization supplies grabbers, vests, trash bags and gloves for those cleanup efforts. Those materials are part of the practical support Keep Mesquite Beautiful provides to students taking part in campus projects. Her comments underscored how the loss reaches people who rely on the nonprofit's equipment to carry out their own cleanup activities.
The equipment serves other needs in Mesquite as well. It is used for work following severe weather and to assist residents who may lack the tools needed to do the work themselves. Lopez said that help depends on the resources the nonprofit makes available. “Without Keep Mesquite Beautiful and without the resources that they give us, none of that is possible,” she said.
Chitty said the organization faces the task of replacing what was taken, but he remains hopeful that those responsible will return it. He appealed to them to reconsider, saying he was willing to forgive the theft and wanted the supplies back so the nonprofit could continue serving the community.
