Someone stole these kids’ toys. A GoFundMe page is helping to replace them.

A preschool near Olympia has started a GoFundMe campaign to replace children’s toys that were stolen in a burglary last week.

Steamboat Island Cooperative Preschool is closed during the summer, but on July 10, the co-op’s teacher, who is its only paid employee, walked into the empty building and realized it had been burglarized.

Due to reorganizing underway at the school, the preschool’s Board President Kelly Magnusson said that it’s difficult to estimate how much was stolen. Magnusson said that projecting when the burglary took place also is challenging because the building had been closed.

A police report has been filed, but there are no leads into who broke in and took the items.

Magnusson said Steamboat employs a “learning through play” method of teaching, and that the toys stolen were manipulatives, or objects meant to enhance fine-motor skills and encourage hands-on learning.

Being a cooperative preschool, Steamboat’s parents keep the program running through volunteering in the classrooms. It is also a non-profit. For Magnusson, that’s what makes the burglary so disheartening.

“It’s already a lot of work to make this (the preschool) work,” Magnusson said. “It’s a really sad thing that someone would go after a co-op.”

As of Monday afternoon, Steamboat’s GoFundMe page had raised $1,170 toward its $1,500 goal.

“The response (to the GoFundMe) has been overwhelmingly supportive,” Magnusson said.

About 20 families have children enrolled at Steamboat. Magnusson herself has 3-year-old twins who attend.

The school’s GoFundMe page says it will use the funds to replace the toys before school resumes in mid-September.

Danielle Derrickson: 360-754-5445, @dderrickson3

This story was originally published July 16, 2018 at 5:17 PM.