Employee vehicle stolen from behind Saskatchewan food bank

While in the middle of distributing Christmas hampers, a food bank employee noticed his car had been stolen in North Battleford, Sask.

Warehouse coordinator Kjell Graupe was at a loss for words after the theft of his 2003 Toyota Corolla around the holiday season.

“Mostly just really confusing … quite a bit of a bummer, I guess, too, my car was a little bit older,” he said.

“Why somebody would do that?”

RCMP are investigating the stolen motor vehicle complaint from Battlefords District Food and Resource Centre at 1171 101st St. at around 2:45 p.m. on Monday.

“I went and checked my jacket to see if I had my keys in there. Didn’t have my keys … I drive our food bank truck usually or often enough to go collect food for the day. And I think while climbing in or out of the truck, they must have fallen out of my pocket,” Graupe said.

“There were two individuals involved. One individual found the keys originally, and he does a lap by himself. And then later on, he walks by with another fellow and then … a couple of hours after the other fellow comes alone and takes the vehicle.

“Actually just walks into the vehicle, my vehicle, like, it was their own.”

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Graupe said he was having trouble coming to terms with someone stealing a vehicle in such close proximity to the food bank.

“You wouldn’t specifically be able to tell that it was a worker’s vehicle here but from where it was parked, it was directly behind our building and the keys were also directly behind the building,” he said.

“So you think the average person that would find them would pick them up and go knock on the building and see if they belong to anybody. … Was not the case.

“We’re currently running our empty stocking program … where we provide larger than usual hampers that have specific items that you’d eat over Christmas time.”

While Graupe works to find a new way to get to and from work, he’s also missing items from inside the car.

“I’m also quite disappointed because I had my cross-country skis and my poles in there … and they’re very hard to come by,” Graupe said.

“That was my favorite way to run my dog … and give him a nice long run. So that was honestly almost a bigger bummer than my car being stolen.

“I’m not sure what coverage I’ll get seeing as it was an older vehicle if it doesn’t turn up so that’s going to suck … I wasn’t really looking to spend those extra funds over this Christmas or any time soon as I’m trying to save to go to school.”

The Corolla is described as a four-door sedan, black in colour and has Saskatchewan licence plate 644JYB.

“It is quite unfortunate but, at this point, you just got to hope for the best and if it does show up, hope that it’s not too badly trashed,” Graupe said.

“Move on with life … I’m just trying to get through the Christmas season.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact Battlefords RCMP at 310-7267 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

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