Queen City Patrol seeking donations after van crash
Organization that picks up used needles expects damaged vehicle to be writeoff
Queen City Patrol is in need of a new vehicle to continue its mission to clean up used needles from Regina streets.
The volunteer organization's van is now out of commission after it was involved in a collision on Saturday evening. Patty Will, the founder of Queen City Patrol, said three people were in the vehicle at the time of the crash and suffered minor injuries.
“All three of them are pretty bruised up and sore, of course,” Will said during a phone interview on Tuesday.
Will said the van was at the corner of College Avenue and Rose Street when the crash happened. In addition to the rear of the vehicle being damaged, Will said the driver's seat broke and the rear-view mirror snapped off and struck the front-seat passenger in the head.
Queen City Patrol does needle pickup throughout Regina, so having a vehicle is essential.
“We do the entire city. We've gone through Eastview, Harbour Landing. Everywhere we've got calls,” said Will.
Will is now waiting for SGI to authorize a temporary rental vehicle and decide what the payout will be for the damaged van. Because of the van's age, Will expects it to be written off. Queen City Patrol will still be in need of a permanent replacement though, and Will doesn't expect the insurance payout to be enough to cover the cost of a new vehicle. She's turning to the community to help raise funds.
Will already has her eye on a 12-passenger van being sold at auction that she said would work perfectly.
“So I'm really, really hoping that we can get enough funds going so we can pick that one up,” said Will.
Queen City Patrol celebrated its one-year anniversary on Nov. 26. As of that date, the organization has collected just over 28,000 needles.
In addition to the fundraiser on Facebook, Will said donations can
also be made to Queen City Patrol when residents drop off bottles at SARCAN, using the code QCP19.