Money stolen from church

Parish ups security after thousands taken from safe

CUPERTINO — A South Bay church has upped its security after thousands of dollars were stolen from a safe.

The burglary at St. Joseph of Cupertino Parish occurred sometime between midnight and 7 a.m. on Aug. 30, according to the Rev. Gregory Kimm.

“It was primarily a loss of bingo funds,” he said.

“Bingo is basically a fundraiser for our parish school as well as for our parish. They’re funds that both the church and school depend on.”

He said a church staff member made the discovery that a burglary had occurred.

“We’re not sure how the person or persons got into the building, but there were obvious signs of damage to the door,” he said.

Kimm said an entire safe was taken from the church.

According to the incident report by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, the safe contained $10,000 and a laptop.

“Because of this incident, we are increasing and upgrading our security measures,” Kimm said.

“We’re just carrying on trying to learn from our mistakes and trying to do better in terms of our security.”

He said the church does not plan to have a fundraiser to cover the lost funds.

“One good thing is that we do have insurance, and we’re hoping to be able to recoup some of our losses through the insurance we have,” he said.

The incident report and Kimm said that it is possible the burglar or burglars were familiar with the church and school facilities.