NORTH BATTLEFORD — Barb Rosendahl didn’t think she would return to the Mennonite Community Closet to see a yard full of donations destroyed and stolen when she left work Friday, Oct. 4.
“I just stood there at 5 a.m. [Oct. 7] and said [to myself]: ‘Now, what are we going to do with all this stuff?’
“Because then the City didn't empty the bins; they have to haul the garbage inside here [until] the bin gets emptied. But what I did first is, James [a longtime staff member] came through the door, but I hauled him back there, because it was too dark to start cleaning up. And then I did phone the CSOs [community safety officers].
“I was so upset,” she said.
As the store manager at Mennonite Community Closet, Rosendahl said donations that were dropped off after work hours being damaged is not unheard of, but none that was quite like this.
“This time around, they destroyed over 50 boxes.”
Then it took about an hour and a half for five staff members working together to clean the mess up out of the fear that “they’ll make another mess,” before the community safety officers showed up to help.
Among the four full-time staff members and some more volunteers that the store has, many are retirees.
Rosendahl said the situation has really gotten worse this year.
Having seen it from the security camera, Rosendahl added that the vandals would use bolt cutters to break the locks and dig through the garbage bins and recycling bins, creating a big mess – and it costs $30 each time to repair the bins.
There are makeshift houses in the alleyway behind the Mennonite Community Closet, and she noted that human feces and used needles can often be found on the ground, but the store doesn’t have the authority to remove those people.
“We're supposed to, you know, supposed to help each other, but it gets frustrating,” she said.
The store reserves shelves full of jackets, blankets and clothes for the homeless to keep them warm through the winter, she said, but some “keep breaking in.”
“It's getting really disheartening. And then they try breaking in our back door too, but they haven't gotten in yet.
“Strange things have happened,” Rosendahl said.
The store, owned by two Mennonite churches—one in North Battleford and the other in Glenbush—operates on a non-profit model, as Rosendahl stressed throughout the interview with the News-Optimist, and has donated thousands of dollars to the food bank and other community services – all earnings are reinvested into the community and used to pay staff wages.
The store wants the public to know that all second-hand items thrown in the garbage will be completely destroyed. Valuable items are sent to Saskatoon instead.
“We're very, very grateful for all the donations that we get. So then we go through them,” she said, adding that the store packs up boxes of donations for the diabetes truck every Thursday morning.
Rosendahl said while the store appreciates all the good donations from citizens, the store is not a substitute for the garbage dump where they have to pay.
As for now, Rosendahl said she doesn't know what the next steps are.
“We really don't have a plan.… we just want the community to know [that donations dropped at the store after work hours are being stolen and destroyed].”
