Amarillo Salvation Army truck found

The Salvation Army of Amarillo welcomed back its truck after it was stolen and abandoned by thieves in a local hotel parking lot.

As previously reported by the Globe-News, the Salvation Army had its 26-foot-truck stolen some time in the night between the hours of 5 p.m. Wednesday afternoon and 10 a.m. Thursday morning last week.

The stolen vehicle was recovered by the Salvation Army after the Amarillo Police Department received a call from an individual notifying APD of the abandoned vehicle around 11 a.m. Friday morning. The truck was abandoned in a hotel parking lot located in the 1600 block of east I-40. No suspects on the theft have been identified at this time.

"It's going to need some repairs. There was a lot of damage on the inside, so we are getting prices on repairing that now," said Major Tex Ellis, Coral Officer for the Amarillo Salvation Army. "It runs, so that is a good thing. We can still utilize it, but they did some damage to the interior of the truck."

According to the Major, no damage or vandalism occurred to the exterior of the vehicle, but the Family Store is still suffering from the property damage that occurred during the initial incident. In addition to the damage to the gate that the thieves made to access and steal the vehicle, the Amarillo Salvation Army has also found out that a window was broken during the heist.

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Ellis believes that the breaking of the window occurred when the thieves were initially trying to access the property to steal the vehicle but realized they could not reach the vehicle from the window, which led to them damaging the gate.

The Salvation Army has made an insurance claim on the damage to the vehicle and is waiting on the claim results to determine their next step concerning the vehicle. As previously reported, the vehicle assists the nonprofit with the transporting of materials for its Family Thrift Store such as furniture, as well as picking up of food donations that go to its pantry and shelter kitchen, along with miscellaneous donations throughout the year.

Ellis expressed the vitality of the vehicle to the non-profit and thanks the community for their involvement in obtaining the vehicle.

The Major said that should it be necessary to purchase a new vehicle the estimated cost is $60,000 and encourages community members who would like to help to reach out to the organization.

"We encourage the community if they would like to make a donation to absolutely reach out to us. There will be some repairs that we will have to make including property repairs at our Family Store, so any way that the community would like to help would be much appreciated," Ellis said.

For more information about the Salvation Army of Amarillo or to make a donation, visit them online at https://www.salvationarmytexas.org/amarillo .

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Stolen truck recovered, returned to Amarillo Salvation Army