Tents stolen from Regina Scouts storage unit

While they are staying home with no group camp-outs this season, Regina’s 86th Scouts group is wondering who would steal their tents and camping gear.

Geoffrey Trofimuk is the commissioner of the scouts group which runs out of northwest Regina and has about 75 members.

“I’m just a little awestruck as to why someone would do that and especially because what are you going to do with 25 tents? It’s just kind of bewildering,” Trofimuk said.

He said about 25 tents plus some cooking gear was stolen from a locked storage trailer by the Regina Food Bank. He explained the scouts made a deal with the food bank to keep the storage trailer in the locked compound there in order to provide easy access when they need it.

One of the parents in the group was surprised to discover the trailer had been broken into and a lot of gear was missing.

“(The tents) were the kind of worst part of it because a large portion of those we just bought this past year and the year prior and they get used quite a bit by our kids,” Trofimuk said.

Now the scouts will have to find some way to replace the missing tents and cooking gear which were all bought with money from fundraisers. In a way, Trofimuk does see the timing of the theft as a small relief because they won’t be needed right away.

“Normally we’d be using those tents throughout the whole spring and summer, but because of the pandemic we’re not able to so it’s kind of a blessing in a way,” Trofimuk said.

He said the parents and leaders are keeping an eye on local buy and sell pages on social media to see if any of the stolen gear appears, but they’re not counting on it.