A guest room at the Ramada hotel in Morgan Hill was burglarized,
and the thief or thieves made off with $8,000 worth of checks and
receipts that were redeemable for donations to support children
with cancer.
A guest room at the Ramada hotel in Morgan Hill was burglarized, and the thief or thieves made off with $8,000 worth of checks and receipts that were redeemable for donations to support children with cancer.
Also stolen from the room was a laptop computer worth about $1,200, and the room was ransacked as the burglar apparently searched for valuable items to steal, according Linda Klotz, the guest who was staying in the room and whose belongings were stolen.
The burglary was reported Friday, and took place sometime between 9:30 a.m. and 12:45 p.m., Klotz said. Visiting from Cameron Park, which is east of Sacramento, for a swim meet at the Aquatics Center across the street on Condit Road, Klotz and her 13-year-old son were not in the room when it was burglarized.
Ramada staff told Klotz that the hotel’s electronic key card log showed an entry into her room about 11:45 a.m., and she had all three cards for her room with her, Klotz said. The maid had already cleaned the room by 9:15 a.m., she added.
The manager of the hotel at 16115 Condit Road declined to comment on the incident.
The biggest loss to Klotz wasn’t the computer, but the checks and receipts that have no monetary value to anyone except the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, who could have redeemed them for cash. Klotz is a first-grade teacher at Blue Oak Elementary school in Cameron Park. For eight years she has organized a fundraising campaign known as “Pennies for Patients,” in which students donated loose change to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The society uses the money for child cancer research.
Klotz brought the paperwork with her on the trip to Morgan Hill so she could organize it and mail it to the society. The checks and receipts could only be redeemed by the cancer research foundation.
“It breaks my heart that someone took something that is useless to them, but is very important to these kids,” Klotz said Monday.
She has set up a Web site, ramadadoor104.blogspot.com, to publicize information about the burglary in hopes that the donations can be recovered. Posted on the Web site is a letter to a Ramada Worldwide vice president, asking the company to make a donation to the “Pennies for Patients” campaign to replace the funds that were lost in the theft.
“Laptops are replaceable but the kids with cancer are the ones that will lose in this situation,” Klotz wrote in the letter.
Klotz reported the theft to Morgan Hill police, who continue to investigate the crime.
Anyone with information about the burglary may contact Morgan Hill Police at (408) 779-2101.
