There’s some positivity coming from the north Regina Walmart fire from December as 36,000 pounds of canned food has been donated to the Regina Food Bank by the store.

As the store is still closed after the December 9th fire allegedly started by a 12 year-old Regina boy, most of the food on the shelves had to be thrown away due to water damage or a lack of power to keep refrigeration units running.

However, food bank CEO John Bailey said Walmart was able to find some food that was usable after the fire.

“They had a really large batch of canned goods and items like that that they could send our way if we could make sure that we knew one, that there was the potential for smoke damage, and two, if we had a way to sort of process to make sure that we were getting safe food to people we serve,” Bailey said. “It was an amazing boon for us at an important time of year for us.”

Bailey said the food bank still needs help trying to sort the donations.

“Basically they are 4′ X 4′ X 5′ bins, and they’re stuffed to the brimming with canned goods, and we have 16 of those,” Bailey said. “In terms of sorting, we’re looking for small groups or large groups to come in and work through it. If there’s individuals we can put you to work as well.”

Bailey said if donations stopped this week, Walmart’s donation allows the food bank to operate for four to six weeks.

“What we’ve been doing is that we’ve had it in our warehouse for two or three weeks now, and we’re a little under halfway through the supply from this particular Walmart batch.”

If you’re interested in volunteering at the food bank, you can register on their website.