(STORY IMAGE:KHQ.COM)
SPOKANE, Wash. -It's a race against time to find a stolen van. A North Spokane child learning center supervisor says one of their vans was stolen sometime Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. They use it to bring kids to and from school and to field trips.
Even though school isn't in session at the moment because of winter break, they are already dealing with the effects. The kids were scheduled to go on a field trip on Thursday but couldn't after what happened. To make matters worse, the van was parked at an employee's home and stolen in the 1000 block of East Cozza area.
"It's disappointing for the kids for sure," said Gordon Smith, the Program Supervisor at Parkview Early Learning Center.
Smith says in the winter, they go out anywhere from 3 to 5 days a week for field trips but it's impossible without one of their vans. "We had issues with vandalism, people siphoning our gas, puncturing our tires and then puncturing the gas tanks as well so we made the decision to have certain employees store them at their house overnight just for safe keeping and we had no issues with that until now," said Smith.
The white three door van they are looking for is posted on their Facebook page. It's a 2006 Ford with black-tinted windows. "There is no defining features unfortunately," said Smith. However, Smith says there could be a few booster seats inside.
He also says field trips aren't the only problem they are facing. School is about to start back up and they drive anywhere from 20 to 30 kids to and from school every day. It's important they have both vans. "Without it, we're either using personal cars, or having to talk to certain parents about possibly transporting their own children," said Smith.
Each van holds about 12 kids.
They've reported it to police and say their license plate number is AVB0766.
If you know anything, report it to Crime Check (509) 456-2233.