Folks step up to help out after robber steals $1,800 from food cart
PORTLAND, Ore. -- A local food cart owner who was robbed over the Thanksgiving holiday went from despair to joy, thanks to the generosity of her community.
On Monday, Mary Sheridan said she'd received $3,200 in donations. Sheridan lost $1,800 in a burglary last week.
She said she planned to donate the extra money to charity.
Friday night, a burglar hit The Honey Pot food cart at Southeast 43rd and Belmont. The burglar took all of the money that owner and single mom Mary Sheridan had made during the holiday week.
"I was here all week making and selling pies and I left my cash in my cash box here, which I usually don't do, but I was on my way to a Thanksgiving celebration and I had an employee coming in the next day to open," Sheridan explained. "So I left the money for her."
But when Sheridan came back Saturday morning, her food cart had been broken into and all her cash - around $1,800 - was gone.
"This last week really was going to make up for slow sales for the next two months," Sheridan said.
"It's just a terrible time to have something like that happen," said customer Eon Lajoie.
"Oh, it was horrible," said customer Dominique Chishti. "I mean, you know, all this Thanksgiving money at a time when it's really hard for food carts."
Sheridan was worried about how she would pay the rent for her food cart and take care of her personal bills as well, like paying for her daughter's preschool. And she was so upset over what happened that she posted this note for the robber:
Photo by KATU Reporter Bob Heye.
Once word got out about what had happened to Sheridan, the community stepped up to help out.
"We heard it on Facebook and had some errands to do here anyway, so we though we would swing in," one couple told us.
People kept stopping by Sheridan's food cart all weekend and paying more than the amount due for their meals. Her cart actually sold out of pies on Saturday due to the rush and she got so many requests from people who wanted to help her out that she added a PayPal account to the Honey Pot website.
"It's pretty amazing," Sheridan said. "I had nothing and then this morning I woke up with enough at least to pay my rent."
"You just kind of get a chance to see the goodness in people when they can rally around a cause," Sheridan said. "And people did."
Sheridan (pictured below) did file a police report on the theft. Through donations, she has been able to recoup almost all of the money that she lost and she plans on giving any extra that comes in to charity. And she also said she will never leave cash in her food cart again.
Photo by KATU Reporter Bob Heye.
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@HarryJuku I agree, except maybe hot dogs. Just gotta love those Chicago style dogs! You know what John Candy said in the Great Outdoors; "You know what hotdogs are made from? A-s-sholes and lips!" So, I figure it just doesn't matter where they heat them up. Butts are butts no matter how or where you dress them!
@HarryJuku So, you want to have it cooked in a hidden kitchen? Just saying.. you don't have to make sense, I suppose(logic isn't exactly this town's strong suit). In Portland, some of it may be "the allure" of going somewhere "not mainstream"(turning it into something mainstream, of course), but the simplicity, quickness and location.
This is news worth hearing. I have had enough politics, Police officers being paralyzed, people stealing from our vets, Hurricane Sandy and other horrible stories with not so happy endings. But when in the midst of all the horrible things that happen to people you hear a story like this it gives a little more hope for our current status. Dont get me wrong, all the bad things are necessary evils because in a lot of the stories I mentioned like Hurricane Sandy for instance, we get to see people rally behind a cause and do good for one another. Lets keep helping our communities, because with out them we would be a lonely place! Happy she got most of her money back and anything left over is going to help others I may have to make a special trip down there tomorrow and help out... I can go without a morning coffee for a week and donate some money!
This speaks volumes about our society.
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Here we have someone who leaves $1800 cash knowing there are people out there who will steal anything they can. Knowing this would prompt most folks to hide the cash very well so that someone would have to do a lot of searching to find it.
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Then we have a criminal who is too lazy to work, has no morals, and is only out for himself.
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Then folks come by to help her out in her time of need.
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This story makes me shake my head at her naievete, makes me angry at the criminal{s} who did this, and makes me happy that folks stepped up to the plate to help her out.
 @RalphCramden Shake your head all you want.. She made a slight mistake and of course you are all over it.. Sickening !
 @dougrpdxÂ
The good part about this whole thing is that my post pisses you off. Priceless.
 @RalphCramden Ralph, I hope you're one of those folks who stepped up to help her out. It's easy to do through her PayPal setup.
 @Old29 Â
Nope. Her mistake needs to be painful. That is how people learn. I had money stolen when I was a kid and every since then I have been very careful about my money and have not had money stolen ever since. It was a good lesson for me.
 @Old29 Â
I don't tell you how to run your life so don't tell me how to run mine.
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Don't like the way I do things? That's just too bad. I won't be changing and can't be guilted into doing something by the likes of you.
 @RalphCramden  @Old29 Yeah, that's what i expect out of conservatives: I-me-me-mine. But you seem a little more circumspect.  i had hoped you would have some empathy. I was wrong. It would also be a good lesson for you to help out a struggling single mother who made an unfortunate error in judgment. Try it. It feels good.
 @RalphCramden What do you expect in a city that all but hands out free needles to people that come to do cheap heroin in the city?  Â
 @lakeview  @RalphCramden don't kid yourself; heroin is everywhere
 @RalphCramden A sub-culture of folks that could care less about anyone, or anything in order to get that next high.  I see them just trudging along the main streets and it seriously reminds me of the extras on, 'The Walking Dead.'  I do agree on the money thing - it would have been safer on her person in my humble opinion...
 @bonedÂ
We have created the society where criminals can flourish. All the social services that they can get keep them from actually living life so hard that they have to go and find a job.
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It's easy to be homeless and a criminal in liberal cities and states.
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It's free. Swipe yo EBT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LWlkXRZ3CA&feature=fvwrel
 @iamtroglodite    @bonedÂ
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I ran away from home at 14 and lived on the streets for a year till I got busted (they arrested runaways back then) and went back home.
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Once I was old enough to leave home I left and was homeless for 3 years in the mid 60's. I lived in an old boxcar on an abandoned siding for almost a year till the railroad dicks kicked me out. I crawled through a hole in the floor I made since the boxcar was locked.
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Then I lived in a hole I dug out near a bridge that was big enough to sit in when it was raining and sleep in. It stayed dry cause I built a drain system above it to funnel the water around it. The hole was camouflaged with blackberry bushes.
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Dumpster diving was a lot better back then. The dumpsters were not locked and sealed like the ones at the major grocery stores. I actually lived pretty well out of dumpsters.
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I bathed in a creek even in the winter and washed my clothes in gas station bathrooms.
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I worked full time after kicking drugs and finally ended up in a room at a boarding house and have never looked back. I am still so cheap and live like I have no money. My daughter keeps telling me to take mom on a world cruise. I know I have more than enough money to last the rest of my life easily but I remember how hard it was living in the streets and am too old to do it now.
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It was a good lesson for me and I learned a lot about living on the streets. It taught me to be very frugal and work hard.
@RalphCramden @boned I can tell you have never been homeless if you think it is easy. I was homeless in the early 70's when I got out of the service (thanks to the wonderful reception at home when I got off the plane). It was not easy in the least, no matter which state I went to, either liberal OR conservative.
Something seems fishy here. Â At the end of one of her busiest weeks she leaves her money in the trailer, something she doesn't do and then it's stolen. Â Were any other food carts broken into?
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She puts this heartfelt note out on her cart and social media and now people are giving her money hands over fist.
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I really hope this is legitimate,but I have my reservations.
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 @pdxtvguy So do I, but I am giving her the benefit of the doubt because there was no mention of her being insured or how much damage was done by the burglar. Once again, not enough information in this two dimensional world...
@boned @pdxtvguy I'm thinking like you pdxtvguy. It does seem strange that the
break in happens the one time that money remains overnight and a morning person
opens without the owner present. Many irregularities there, or is it just coincidence??Â
 @Jenni S.  @Older than dirt  @boned Good to know.  That being said, why on earth would anyone leave $1,800 inside a trailer when you know that there's a high likelihood that it could be broken into?  Especially when your family depends on that money.  So what if you're going to a Thanksgiving party, It's probably safer with you than leaving it there.
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I'm still convinced, even more now, that there's more to this story.
 @Older than dirt  @boned  @pdxtvguy From what I've heard, it's pretty common for them to get broken into. Thieves especially like the power cords, apparently. They probably hit up a lot of them, looking for things of value. It wouldn't hit the news, though, unless they stole something big (like the stories a few weeks ago about the power cords being stolen).
 @SquatchWatcher  @whirledworld  @Older than dirt  @boned Hey, I'm simply looking at the large picture here rather than just one small slice of it.  I'd be asking police if there's a history of burglaries at food carts in the area or in general around town.  Did anyone have any surveillance video of the cart pod.  All we have at this point is a business woman who says her cart was burglarized and who put a letter up telling her story.  That's all we have.Â
 @whirledworld  @Older than dirt  @boned  @pdxtvguy If you had worked 27 hours in 2 days prepping for the holiday, could you seriously doubt her story? Human beings are a**holes. Blame the criminal, not the victim, FFS.
 @Older than dirt  @boned  @pdxtvguy Thieves are slick and very observant if they want to be "successful".  When I read this, I wondered if it was an inside job by someone who knew her worker or herself and her habits/plans with the money for overnight with the worker opening shop in the a.m.?. Or someone who hung around watching her habits and moves at closing.
I am realy sorry for this girl, and am completely disgusted by people that do this to eachother. But, and I just have to say it, but, if I remember right from when in se asia in the late 60's, a honey pot was what they called the rice patties they crapped in. Not my idea of a name for a food establishment.
@iamtroglodite
Honeypot  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  Look up honeypot: in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Honeypot is literally:
A pot, jar or other container used to store honey
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@whirledworld @iamtroglodite yes I know this, the point was the way words can be used. Like crap: the name of the guy who perfected the flushing toilet had the last name crapper and now we use his name fow, well, you know. And, as a side note, if you spend your life bowing down to "wikipedia" you will be getting incomplete info and sometimes even false info. This is a good example; the rice patties and read Boned's explanation above.
 @whirledworld  @iamtroglodite Some people just have trouble elevating their thinking.
 @iamtroglodite When was the last time you poured diesel in those 'honey-pots' under the outhouse and lit them on fire with a flare so you could stir them?? Those were our 'honey-pots' I remember and I learned something new this evening...
I too, had a thief steal something very important to me just a week prior. Being ripped off hurts! Thieves need a more effective punishment than what our courts can provide. Then to do it over a holiday!!!!! Ms.Sheridan's note to the thief was very polite towards the thief and wished them no ill. I salute her for having such a good heart! I also salute her generous customers and others who gave her back some of the material loss she suffered. The emotional loss? Unfortunately I have anger issues and cannot bring myself to be as nice as she was..... I once wanted to be a policeman but saw where I'd not be able to carry the weight of the badge properly, so I was an artist. I want thieves to feel the hopelessness I felt when I saw what was stolen from me on the 15th. IÂ hope Ms. Sheridan is coping better than I am and my prayer's go to her heart and it's healing from this. Â
 @MickRoh Want we all want is for thieves to develop a conscience and foresight and empathy...this would stop thievery. They lean towards being sociopaths with no consciences at all.
Well, Ms Sheridan, the thief was probably some druggie whose only goal in life is the next hit of his/her drug-of-choice... and they couldn't care less about you, your kids, or your business... they don't care about anything except themselves and feeding their own damned addiction... Â (That thief is rackin' up some b-a-d karma..!)
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Fortunately, most of the rest of we-the-people aren't that way... Â Â So happy to hear that people responded and were able to help you..! Â Â (Apple pies, huh? Â For once, I wish I lived closer to Portland... I would've stopped by, too..!) Â Â
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Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful holiday season..! Â Sometimes, something bad happening can lead to finding out that there is also still some GOOD in the world... Â :-)
 @margay1 I will now hunt down this food cart, The Honey Pot, and buy all the pies I can carry away. I really hope the donations that come in will cover her losses and more, and turn this holiday around for Mary Sheridan. Making a living making homemade pies is hard work that we can all appreciate.
 @shewiz  @margay1 Mmmmmm...homemade pies.....mmmmmm. Good idea.
nice community she has . too bad she left the money there.
 @mstercor ~  Too bad we have lowlife thieves in our society who have no respect for other peoples' property..!  Â