A community cafe run solely by volunteers is facing the prospect of not being able to pay its bills this month following a break in.
Thieves hit the Grassroots Cafe in Oban’s Craigard Road during the night and took a sum of cash and various items.
Volunteers discovered the theft on Thursday morning when they arrived to open the cafe and found a broken kitchen window and an empty cash box lying on the floor.
Maggie Clayton, volunteer, said: “I’m absolutely devastated. It is awful. The irony of it is that one of the objectives of the cafe, if we ever make a profit, which we don’t, is to help local struggling people. Someone has helped themselves.”
The Grassroots Cafe was set up to be a local hub where people can meet up, tackle social isolation and engage politically.
Various groups are able to meet there for free or for a very small donation. Tea, coffee, cakes and soup are offered for free or a small donation.
Retired people or people who are unemployed volunteer there and the cafe has no paid staff.
Stacey Felgate, Grassroots committee member, said: “People are welcome to come in and use the space, it is very comfortable.
“Members of the community come in and it’s a bit of contact for them during the day. Anyone can come in and use it.”
She added: “Someone has smashed the kitchen window and come in that way. They have had a rake around, taken money and a couple of things. It’s pretty close to what it would cost us to run the place for a month
“We were actually quite shocked and never considered that anybody would do that, one, because we didn’t think we had anything of worth to take, and two, because it is Oban and it is a community thing.
“After we got over the initial shock, we thought that you don’t know what drives someone to do that, and we are there to help people, so we hope that whatever problem drove them to do that, gets fixed.”
The cafe has already been contacted by two local firms, Jamie Macmillan Joinery and Carpentry, and DS Joinery, offering to fix the damage from the break-in for free. They have also received donations from individuals.
Sergeant Alan Moore of Oban Police Station said: “We are aware of a theft by house breaking at Grassroots Cafe and inquiries are ongoing.”