Regina porch pirates steal T-shirts meant for Ukraine humanitarian fundraising effort

The owner of a Regina clothing shop is hoping someone knows where his stolen T-shirts are, and will return them.

The shirts were going to be used to help raise money for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

Matt Thompson is the co-owner of Tall Grass Apparel along with Erin Vaughn. On Monday, a UPS truck delivered two boxes to the front doorstep of Thompson’s home in the Broders Annex area instead of his back door as Thompson had requested.

“As soon as UPS dropped them off, my business partner was over at my house pretty much within 30, 40 minutes and they couldn’t find the boxes,” Thompson said.

“So my next door neighbour saw some people at my front door and stuck their head out. They had a conversation and she pulled her video and found all the exact times for everything and sent them over to me.”

The video shows what appear to be two youths, one wearing black and the other wearing a red jacket. When the audio from the video is amplified, a child’s voice can be heard saying, “Want to go that way? Go that way!”

Each of them could be seen walking up to Thompson’s doorstep and carrying away the boxes.

Inside the two boxes were 128 blank shirts worth nearly $1,400.

“We’re doing a joint partnership with the Ukrainian Co-op to raise money for Ukraine,” Thompson said. “All 128 of those shirts were going to a charity and now we had to try and find other ones.

“All of the profits — we weren’t taking any profits, they weren’t taking any profits — all of the profits were going to Ukraine.”

Thompson designed a heart with the colours of the Ukrainian flag to adorn the shirts. An initial set quickly sold out earlier at the Co-op.

He has filed a report with Regina police, and a claim with UPS.

“The shipper was very concerned and they pretty much have got my back with everything, but then essentially they said it was going to take eight business days,” Thompson said. “There’s no way they can speed it up.”

He’s hoping whoever took the boxes with the shirts in them will simply return them to his home, no questions asked.

“I just want the shirts back,” Thompson said. “I don’t have any interest in pursuing it any further.”