School volunteer accused of stealing $27,000 from fund raiser. She said her kids needed food

A Catholic school volunteer charged with stealing more than $27,000 from a fund-raising program said she took the money to feed her children, according to court records.

The 42-year-old is charged with first-degree theft and scheduled to be arraigned July 20.

She ran a fund raiser for St. Frances Cabrini School in Lakewood. People would buy gift cards and a percentage of each purchase would benefit the school.

The volunteer allegedly resigned.after the school principal started asking questions about why the fund raiser wasn’t making the usual amount of money. The school then launched an investigation.

It found that from July 2017 to April, the volunteer bought more than $27,000 worth of gift cards through the program but did not pay for them.

When confronted, the volunteer said she’d recently lost her job and her husband, and was desperate to take care of her children.

She said the “program made it too easy” to steal and her kids were hungry, according to charging papers.

This story was originally published July 9, 2018 at 12:47 PM.