Association for New Canadians scrambling to provide services after vehicles stolen, damaged

A non-profit group that helps immigrants and refugees adjust to life in Newfoundland and Labrador says a wrench has been thrown in their programming after one of their minivans was stolen and several others were damaged.

Wayne Pierce, senior operations manager of the Association for New Canadians, said the organization discovered Monday that one of its black Dodge Grand Caravans were missing from the parking lot of its Tiffany Court offices in St. John's.

After filing a report with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, they realized several of their other vehicles had been vandalized.

"We noticed that we had received some damage on the sides of the vehicles and the insides of the vehicles had been gone through," Pierce told CBC News on Wednesday. Several vehicles had broken windows, he said. The group's 24-seat bus was also missing from its designated parking spot and was later found damaged on Torbay Road.

Pierce said the damage and loss of a vehicle is devastating for the group, which relies on the vehicles to deliver programming.

"On any given day we'll move 400-plus students for our [English as a Second Language] program.… We do support our settlement and resettlement services through these vehicles," he said.

"It's a lot of quick stepping to get contingencies in place.The work still goes on even if you can't get the equipment."

Pierce said the association is working on a way to make sure transportation to its services can continue but the damage will leave an impact in more ways than one — as it tries to get things back to normal while dealing with auto body shops, insurance agencies and police to figure out what happened.

"The impact is substantial, but we're confident and pretty sure that we'll continue on business as usual."

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