Cambridge Food Bank remains open after fire, but access to fresh and frozen food on hold

The Cambridge Food Bank is cleaning up after a fire Monday night damaged three condenser units for a walk-in fridge and freezer at its Ainslie Street South location.

One of the three units, a cooler that was purchased a year ago with a Trillium Grant, was destroyed by fire, while another had some damage and was being repaired Tuesday.

The destroyed unit cost about $26,000 when it was purchased, Dianne McLeod, the food bank's executive director, told CBC News.

She said the fire also destroyed food that had been purchased for one of their programs.

"Monday morning we had just purchased about $2,000 worth of produce for our mobile food market. That fridge condenser unit was fully engulfed and was completely destroyed," McLeod said.

"So we moved as much as we could into our other walk-in cooler that we usually use for emergency hamper program. But to make that happen we had to quickly move out a lot of food that was supposed to be for the week."

McLeod said they also needed to give away a lot of frozen foods to shelters and meal programs after noticing one of their freezers was losing temperatures.

She said they help roughly 100 to 150 families daily. The families will still have access to the food bank's location as they are open, but they won't be able to get frozen and refrigerated items for a few days. The shelves are still stocked with non-perishable items, though, McLeod said, and the mobile food market continues to operate.

Emergency services with Waterloo region received reports of a fire at the Cambridge Food Bank location at Ainslie Street South and Bruce Street around 8:30 p.m. ET on Monday.

Waterloo regional police say a 30-year-old Cambridge man has been charged with arson.