In the midst of a move to its new permanent location, the Lake Country Food Bank was vandalized and robbed between Saturday and Monday.
When volunteers arrived for work on Monday morning, they noticed one of the group’s storage sheds had its lock cut off and one of the freezers inside had been left open. A large amount of canned goods was removed from the location.
It was the first time the food bank had suffered a break in at the location, in the old Winfield Elementary School.
“We know this was a very isolated incident,” said Joy Haxton, food bank director.
“We have incredible community support but you get angry when you see this kind of thing. We’ve got a lot on our plate. We’ve only got four days to complete our move and be ready for the next set of hampers. It was really lousy timing and very disappointing.”
Haxton reported the incident to Lake Country RCMP who are investigating but she said they don’t have a lot to go on.
There was trash left behind and it appeared a fire had even been set outside one of the storage bins and she wasn’t sure if there was just one, or possibly two separate incidents.
The break-in occurred with the Lake Country Food Assistance Society set to hand out the last of its hampers from the old location.
The group provides hampers on a monthly basis and will hand out this month’s hampers to people from its old location and in March will be fully moved in to the new building, near the Winfield Seniors Centre.
“We have alarmed security and cameras at the new location and lights on all the time,” said Haxton.
If you want to help the Lake Country Food Assistance Society, contact 250-766-0125. If you have information on the break-in at the food bank, contact the RCMP at 250-766-2288.