The LaOtto Volunteer Fire Department asked the public for help, and the community has indeed responded as over the weekend, someone stole the department’s dropbox where money from sales for live Christmas trees, a large annual fundraiser for the department, was kept.

According to the department, the money raised was to be used to buy equipment to serve citizens, and run day-to-day operations for the volunteer fire department.

Upon the disappearance of the box though, the community has reached out to the department nonstop trying to help including people offering to either drop off donations, or offering to mail in donations.

The fire department purchased a replacement dropbox and installed it Monday afternoon so people could still purchase Christmas trees. Authorities are encouraging anyone who dropped a check in the box between 6 p.m. on November 30th to 8 a.m. on December 1st to allow that check to cash and notify the fire department once it does go through, Burkhart said.

Anyone with information on who stole the box is asked to call the LaOtto Volunteer Fire Department at (260) 897-2286 or the Noble County Sheriff’s Department at (260) 636-2182.