THUNDER BAY – Bay Village Coffee has raised $60,000 in five years for the Northern Cardiac Fund with their annual heart cookie campaign every February.
In its first year, the cookie fundraiser brought in $18,000 for the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation’s cardiac care fund and in 2024, the local coffee shop sold nearly 5,000 cookies, a number they’re looking to top this year.
And as of Monday morning, they already had 1,200 cookies sold through pre-orders.
“It’s pretty amazing, all from a cookie in February,” said Alan Forbes, owner of Bay Village Coffee.
The fundraiser started five years ago, following the death of Patti Hobbs, a good friend to the Bay Village crew.
Hobbs died as a result of a heart attack after complaining about a sore neck.
“Nobody really realized that was a very common symptom in women who have heart problems and so when I found that out, I thought, you know what, we really need to do something to sort of get that out there and let people know because everybody was surprised that was a common symptom, particularly in women and not men,” said Forbes.
Forbes expected to mostly raise awareness and possibly make $500 to $1,000, so they were shocked to raise $18,000 that first year.
Then two years ago, Forbes suffered a heart attack and found himself at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
“That just sort of reinvigorated our enthusiasm for it,” he said. “Being in Northwestern Ontario, if you have to have a bypass or open-heart surgery, you're having to be shipped to Toronto or Hamilton or Ottawa, and I know for myself, I didn't have to get shipped away, but in my experience here, if I had been shipped away, it would have been so much harder, so much more stressful," he said.
"I was very fortunate to be able to have a procedure done here and I was able to have my family by my side.”
The cookie itself is butter cream sandwiched between two heart-shaped sugar cookies, then glazed with a few sprinkles. It also comes with a mini heart cookie cutout.
“It’s been probably the most labour-intensive cookie that we could come up with, but again at the beginning of this, we didn’t expect such a turnout and the cookies were a hit so we can’t stray away from that,” said Forbes.
Bay Village Coffee has put out a call for volunteers to help assemble the cookies and Forbes said the response has been overwhelming.
“People are giving back in all kinds of ways. They're showing up and giving their time. They're sharing our posts on social media and buying cookies, and it's really been amazing,” he said.
Cookies are available all February at Bay Village Coffee, located on Bay Street, and pre-orders can be made by emailing [email protected]. They cost $7 each with half of the sales going to the health sciences foundation.
