THUNDER BAY – The cookies at Tim Hortons are grinning again, and so are a pair of local charities.
The popular Smile Cookie campaign is back, and once again Toys for Tots and the George Jeffrey Children’s Foundation will benefit. They are hoping to build on last year’s donation of more than $116,000, split evenly between the two organizations.
Smile Cookies have a huge impact on annual fundraising efforts, says Paul Penna, who heads the Thunder Bay Professional Firefighters Toys for Tots drive each holiday season.
“Basically, the last few years, it has ensured that we’re successful,” Penna said.
“If you think about it, if we raised around $160,000 last year through our campaign separately, and when we got ($58,000) from the cookie campaign, that’s just a massive percentage. Without it we wouldn’t have had nearly the success that we had.”
Stephanie Paxton, donor relations and communication officer at George Jeffrey Children’s Foundation, said the money allows her organization to offer a wider range of services to a larger number of clients.
“It really supports community organizations and kids in the community,” Paxton said.
“The George Jeffrey Children’s Foundation supports the programs, services and equipment purchases that really help George Jeffrey Children’s Centre, where they serve more than 3,000 kids each year with their physical, mental and social/special needs.
“It’s really impactful to our community and not only just in Thunder Bay, but in the region as well.”
The campaign originally started in 1996 and over the past three decades has raised $111 million from coast-to-coast.
Thunder Bay always steps up, she added.
“It’s a lot of Smile Cookies sold and a lot of money for the two charities to put toward their programming, which is huge,” Paxton said.
It’s crazy to think about, Penna said.
“It’s mind boggling to me. I can’t even comprehend how a city of 100,000 could buy that many cookies,” he said.
Cookies, which will be sold throughout the week, are $1.50 apiece, and can be purchased at all participating Tim Hortons locations. All proceeds are then donated to the two organizations.
Melanie Williamson, who owns and operates the Memorial Avenue location, said it’s always a busy time of year, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s great. It’s actually a really good thing that we’re really busy. We have lots of people from the community come down to volunteer to help us make these cookies, as well as the efforts from our team members putting in the extra time to help out. Everybody just comes together to do this.”
Last year’s campaign raised nearly $20 million nationwide.
