BURIEN, Wash. — The beauty of nature in the Pacific Northwest is not something to be missed-- especially this time of year.
But year-round, a local nonprofit called the Youth Experiential Training Institute, or YETI, has made it their mission to create places of belonging in outdoor settings for young people in King County. By hosting outdoor adventures, they provide students with free or low-cost outdoor recreational equipment to use; in turn breaking down financial, cultural, and gender barriers.
The very equipment they depend on, however, was stolen from their gear shed in Burien over the weekend, according to David Dunphy, the group's executive director.
"If you want to be successful outside, you can't be successful without good clothes," Dunphy said. “A lot of the equipment that we had, that we are counting on to get ready for this next school year, was taken... unfortunately, our storage container was broken into."
Dunphy asked for the public's help as they work to replace the very items they had counted on to empower local children of all backgrounds.
“Opening up this morning, it was pretty devastating to look in there and just see everything in disarray, and see everything we use on a regular basis-- just-- not there anymore," Dunphy said. "I think that we'll just rely on our volunteers, our donors, our insurance and those things, to help us kind of put the pieces back together."
Volunteers spent the evening taking inventory of what gear they still had left. Dunphy said "thousands and thousands of dollars of outdoor gear" was missing.
"It's everything from, most of our clothing equipment, to all of our overnight stuff," Dunphy said. "Some of our mountain bikes were all taken."
YETI typically provides transportation, meals and outdoor equipment for free or on a "pay what you can" basis to families who might not otherwise be able to afford it. They were one of the 2023 recipients of the KING 5 Tegna Foundation Grant.
But after this weekend's break-in, they are asking you to help them out. Donate time, resources, or "watch for a lot of outdoor gear showing up being sold," Dunphy said.
He said all of their gear has their name, YETI, written on it.
Separately, Dunphy urged people to report any facetious behavior or similar incidents to police, in hopes that investigators can possibly connect a suspect to the break-in and make an arrest.