'A tragedy': Overnight fire damages Cathedral Community Fridge

Fire officials are investigating after a fire completely destroyed the community fridge in the Cathedral neighbourhood.

Organizers with the community fridge said fire crews responded to the fire sometime between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Saturday.

Bree Kroner, one of the organizers, said they were told from investigators that the damage was not caused by an electrical fire.

“They did an assessment. We are not going to have an official cause of the fire disclosed until Monday. He did rule out that it was not an electrical fire. That’s all we know so far.”

The Cathedral Community Fridge has been open and running for the last four years.

It’s a place where people who may be struggling can go and grab food for free.

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“We feed hundreds of people a day. Up to 200,000 pounds of food every year to people in need, not only in Regina but also across Saskatchewan,” Kroner said.

"It's absolutely a tragedy. As we've been cleaning here there have been children, there have been elderly folks, there have been folks living with extreme disability coming by. This is their only resource for food, especially on a weekend. There are no resources for food and one for the first people that saw when I came up was a child in tears wondering where she's going to get her food today.”.

The group has set up a GoFundMe page to help with rebuilding.

“The rebuilding efforts are going to be huge and that’s something we’re going to be getting on as soon as possible,” she explained.

Kroner said she isn't sure if they are going to continue operating the new fridge once the building has been rebuilt in the same spot.

“People travel from all around Regina to utilize this resource, so for us to displace people for that resource wouldn’t be in our best interest," she explained.

"We don’t know yet what’s going to happen.”