‘We’ve got a problem, it won’t start;’ Catalytic convertor stolen off area food pantry’s van

XENIA — A local food pantry had their catalytic converter stolen off of their delivery van, and it was all caught on camera.

Catalytic converter thefts are still up all over the Miami Valley, and News Center 7′s Taylor Robertson talked to the owner of a local auto shop who said it can take around three hours to replace them but less than a minute to steal.

Gail Matson, executive director of the Greene County FISH Pantry, said a catalytic converter was stolen from the van the pantry uses to pick up food for the people that need it.

This all happened on Friday, April 28. Matson did not realize the converter was stolen until the following Tuesday when her husband was getting ready to take the van to pick up bread.

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“He comes in and he says ‘We’ve got a problem, it won’t start,’” she said.

That’s when they had the van towed to Mufflers Brothers Auto Shop in Xenia to be fixed.

“We got it up in the air and started checking everything, and it was getting the signal to start but it wouldn’t crank, and then all of the sudden we looked up and we saw that the converter was missing,” said Walter Crum, owner of Mufflers Brothers Auto Shop in Xenia.

Crum said replacing it isn’t an easy fix.

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“We got to drop the whole cradle assembly down in order to put it all back in there. It wasn’t just a two-minute or 15-minute fix… it’s a very time-consuming job,” Crum said.

It’s also not cheap to replace. The repairs cost hundreds of dollars.

“That’s $500 almost $600 dollars that we can’t buy food with, and right now we need food badly,” Matson said.

The van is now back in service and in just the right time.

Matson said the pantry is in need of food donations as more families are in need of food assistance.

“We went from 500 families a month to now we’re serving 1,300 families a month,” Matson said.

To donate to the Greene County FISH Pantry, you can visit their website here.

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