Gene Meeks and his son, Steve, have been putting up lights at their Crozet-area house since 1994. The family nails a donation box to a tree for the thousands of people who come to Meeks’ Run to see the lights every year to show their appreciation and help local charities.

Late Saturday night, December 15, after they’d turned off their famed annual display, which was written up last week in the Hook, someone came by and cut the lock on the donation box.

“It looks to me like it was cut with a hack saw or a bolt cutter,” Gene Meeks says.

The robber may have thought he was just stealing from the Meeks family, but it’s worthy causes that will suffer, Meeks says: “All those donations we redirect towards the community.”

Before the incident, the family was emptying the box every week or so, and Gene Meeks estimates there was “an excess of $200 in it.”

Since the lights went on, they’ve collected about $300 for charity. He says that because of the robbery, the family now empties the box each night. The situation is very distressing to the Meeks family, who put up lights at their own expense for the community to enjoy every year.

“It takes a pretty low person to do that,” the elder Meeks says.

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