DANVILLE — WITS Recycling officials are committed to restoring their household recycling program despite the recent theft of some electronics that were to be sold to raise funds for a new sprinkler system.

Rob Shipman, development director for the St. Louis-based nonprofit organization, said last week when he was visiting the organization's Danville location that someone broke into the WITS building at 1507 N. Bowman Ave. and took laptops and televisions that were donated by a St. Louis vendor for the purpose of selling them to raise badly needed funds for repair of the sprinkler system.

Doug Miller, deputy director of Danville police, said the break-in is under investigation. He said burglars got into the building through a window late Wednesday or early Thursday last week.

Last month, the WITS recycling center had to stop accepting household recycling materials, because the city's code enforcement department shut down that part of the nonprofit organization's operation because of health and safety code violations at the Bowman site, which is the former Eagles grocery building. One of the violations was a sprinkler system that was not functioning, and according to city officials, if a building has such a system, it must be working per state codes. Until WITS can get the system fixed, it can no longer use that portion of the building, which housed the household recycling operation.

The need for a sprinkler system affects only the household-recycling portion of the business, not its core mission to recycle electronics and computers.

"We are a self-supporting nonprofit, and when things like this happen to us, it kills us," Shipman said

To cover the cost of hiring a contractor to fix the sprinkler system, WITS officials need to raise about $30,000, according to Shipman. Toward that goal, WITS is planning an electronics sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m Aug. 13 at its Bowman Avenue location, but some of the items that were to be sold in that event were stolen Wednesday, Shipman said.

WITS is a nonprofit organization started by Angela Haas in St. Louis to recycle computers and other electronics to keep them from the waste stream. She expanded her operation, which has been successful in St. Louis, to Danville several years ago. Wes Burress donated two buildings to WITS, one at 1017 Griggs St. and the former Eagles grocery building on Bowman Avenue. Initially, WITS operated at the Griggs Street location but eventually moved to Bowman Avenue. After Vermilion County dropped its countywide recycling program a few years ago, WITS expanded its mission to household recyclables, including paper, plastic, paperboard and most recently glass and tin.

Shipman said WITS encourages everyone to come to next weekend's sale, which will feature refurbished computers, desktops as well as lap tops, and many other electronics, including DVD players, televisions and more.

For those interested in next weekend's sale, Shipman said it will feature desktops and lap tops for as little as $75 and for another $30, WITS can load it with Microsoft Office software.

"That's one of our big selling points," said Shipman, who added that the sale will also include a variety of other electronics and free food.

He said WITS really wants to get its household side of the mission going again and the more successful the sale next weekend, the closer they will be to restoring the household recycling service to people locally.