Some 4,000 digital photographs and five hours of videotape were stolen at the end of a weeklong camp for Hawai'i children with serious heart problems, and some of the kids have already broken open their piggy banks to offer a reward for their return.

"Losing those pictures, I felt like somebody had cut my own heart out," said Michael Goldring, who shot the photos and whose 14-year-old daughter, Rachael, has undergone four operations for pulmonary atresia. "They stole our memories. You can't do that."

Two laptops and an external hard drive with the images were taken Saturday from the lodge at Camp Mokule'ia at the end of the first Hawai'i camp put on by a California-based nonprofit group, Camp Taylor Inc.

The purpose of the camp was to introduce Hawai'i parents and children to 12 older children who have survived the same diseases and defects, said Kimberlie Gamino, executive director of the camp named after her 13-year-old son, Taylor Gamino.

"It gave the families a lot of hope to have a 14-year-old mentoring a 5-year-old with the same heart disease," Kimberlie Gamino said. "We have pictures of a 5-year-old with a scar down his chest and a 14-year-old holding him with the same scar down his chest."

When the camp was ending and the Hawai'i kids had left, Camp Taylor organizers returned to the lodge to find their quarters ransacked.

Three cell phones, a Blackberry, a Sony video camcorder, hardware for a wireless Internet connection and cash were also taken, Gamino said.

A man later returned the laptops and two of the cell phones to Camp Mokule'ia officials, saying his 17-year-old son had stolen them, Gamino said.

But the laptops had been erased and the external hard drive with backup copies of all of the video and photo images remains missing.

Honolulu police spokeswoman Michelle Yu said officers are following up on leads and have "possible suspects. But no arrests have been made yet."

'POIGNANT MOMENT'

Camp Taylor organizers, Gamino said, "feel violated that someone has done this to us. But we can rise above that. We just want that footage and those images back. They're priceless to us and to the families of these kids."

Among the shots were pictures of children accustomed to hospitals playing in waves and tide pools. Others showed younger Hawai'i children asleep in the arms of the California kids.

One image captured a woman whose husband is deployed to Afghanistan looking out toward the ocean while holding her 13-month-old child, who suffers from a serious heart defect.

"It was a poignant moment where they both seem to be looking off into the distance," said Goldring, an attorney and professional photographer from Fresno, Calif. "The pictures show dozens of tender moments between the kids and their parents and tender moments between the Hawai'i kids and their mentors."

Goldring's daughter was born without a pulmonary valve, a condition that affects the flow of oxygen in the blood, according to the American Heart Association Web site.

Amber Chang of Mililani and Keegan Passos of Waikele, both 9, busted open their piggy banks to encourage someone to turn over the hard drive.

Amber attended Camp Taylor as the sibling of her 3-year-old sister, Ally, who was born with two holes in her heart. Amber's piggy bank held about $20.

Keegan, who will undergo another heart operation in San Diego in a couple of weeks, contributed just over $11.

Amber and Keegan have also been contacting other members of Kardiac Kids, who meet in family support groups at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children.

"Keegan and Amber came up with that," said Amber's mother, Debra Chang. "They said, 'We're going to do something.' Personally, I'm angry and frustrated. They (Camp Taylor organizers) do such good work and tried to make sure all the families were having a good time. Then we leave and they get robbed. It's just not right."

LITTLE SCRAPBOOKS

When he learned of the theft, Keegan cried so hard that he could barely catch his breath, said his mother, Jullie Passos.

The teenage mentors had already produced little scrapbooks of photos, notes and signatures for the 20 Hawai'i families who came to the camp from June 24 through Saturday.

Out of everyone, Keegan left with one of the largest scrapbooks with a collection of six pictures.

But he was still disappointed that he wouldn't get a DVD collection of all of the 4,000 images like the Camp Taylor organizers had planned.

"That album is like gold to Keegan," his mother said. "He cherishes it because at the camp he felt just like everybody else. But there are only a few pictures in it. There are thousands of other memories that he's never going to have."

"It's just so sad," Debra Chang said. "They did a good thing, and good things should happen to them. Not this."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.