Pipe bursts at Calgary pet charity warehouse, destroying thousands of dollars in food

A Calgary charity for furry friends has lost all its pet food donations worth thousands of dollars.

“This is a tremendous loss for us and we are still evaluating and cleaning up back in our food bank,” Lauren Fettig, communication & fundraising lead with Parachutes for Pets. “This is a tremendous loss for us and we are still evaluating and cleaning up back in our food bank.”

The Parachute for Pets warehouse was full of pet food donations, when a frozen and cracked water pipe on Tuesday night gave way, springing a major leak.

This non-profit has been helping vulnerable Calgarians with their pets since 2019 and their food bank has never seen demand this high.

But, this water leak incident has destroyed their specialty pet and vet care food, worth thousands of dollars.

“The estimated value right now of the food that was damaged and no longer usable is around $16,000,” said Fettig. “It was very unfortunate that most of that food was newly purchased from all of our fundraising efforts and our campaigns that campaigns that happened in December.”

A building inspection on Tuesday night led the team to discover the water damage and they tried their best to save as much as they could.

“Pipe on the outside of the building here all froze up and this pipe along the top here is the roof drainage,” Fettig showed CityNews Wednesday. “The pipe froze up here, the water started to drain and there was nowhere for the water to go.

“It caused pressure and the pipe broke and caused a rain shower down onto all of the pet food on all of the shelves.”

Fettig says volunteers helped clean up the mess and the team bought new pet food with the reserve budget, despite this, the event has left them emotionally drained.

“We are a little quite emotional in here today,” she said. “All of this hard work and all the time spent, you know, organizing, getting this food, the time we spent, making sure this food gets to clients.

“It just puts added stress on the whole team here, especially when we now have to re-evaluate and potentially take money away from different programs that we have here at Parachutes for Pets.”

She adds insurance is an option but it will cost the business more in the long run, thus they are trying to manage without it and are urging Calgarians to donate whatever they can, in the form of money or pet food.