Father Glyn Rees from St John’s Anglican Church said someone has offered to lend a laptop on a day-by-day basis, but it would have to be returned each night.

“We’ve got somebody who has offered, but I’m not sure for how long,” Father Rees said.

“The accounting system that we use, we are having write it into note books.

“It’s a lot more time consuming, unfortunately quite a lot of personal details were on that computer.”

The church relied on the computer to run a six-year program that had helped about 150 families in need.

Father Rees said they are now looking to do some fund-raising, which could take up to five months to get enough for a new laptop.

“The one we lost was $1500,” he said

“So we will start fundraising in our local congregation.

“You can’t do raffles every day, so every second week we will raffle a cake or get someone to mow someone’s lawn for a donation, that kind of stuff.”

A window was broken to gain entry to the church and the thief took a black HP ProBook laptop and about $50 in petty cash.

Father Rees said he had already received a donation to help cover the damage costs.

“It was just amazing, we had a person come up an knock on the door offering $200 for the window repair which was very generous.”

The church is looking to recover the original laptop, but Father Rees said spare or second hand ones would be a huge help.

Anyone who wants to donate towards a new laptop can go into St John’s Anglican Church on Beechworth Road or phone (02) 6024 2053.