BURGLARS TAKE KIDS' CHARITY CASH.

Byline: Staff and wire services

VALENCIA - It doesn't get much lower than this.

Burglars broke into a Valencia child-care center over the weekend and stole money the kids had been collecting for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the charity that grants wishes for dying children.

Sometime between 7:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 a.m. Monday, someone stole $584 from La Petite Academy on Anza Drive in the Valencia Industrial Center, sheriff's officials said.

Staffers arrived to work Monday to find a door ajar, windows pried open and milk in the refrigerator turned sour because the refrigerator had been ransacked.

``When I came in here, everybody was going sort of crazy. The money had been stolen,'' Arthur Trowbridge, a parent, told KCAL (Channel 9). ``The sad part of it was that it was money from contributions collected for Make-A-Wish Foundation.''

The youngsters were beyond the 25 percent mark in their drive to collect $2,000 to donate to the charity.

``We were trying to do something good for the community. It's really sad that somebody would do this,'' said Pamela Byrd Williams, another parent.

``It's sad to think someone would violate us this way,'' Becky Green Marroquin said.

Her daughter Andrea concurred, saying, ``It was to help kids get better.''