THUNDER BAY — The Tim Hortons’ Smile Cookie campaign presented two cheques to the Dew Drop Inn and George Jeffrey Children’s Foundation on Tuesday.
This year, the local campaign raised over $119 thousand, selling almost 60,000 cookies in Thunder Bay from April 28 to May 4.
“It feels fantastic to have this donation stuff go on for the community,” said Melanie Williamson, a local franchise owner.
“It feels great when everybody comes out to help and participate. It’s just not the community that does it, like it’s everybody involved.”
She said the day was about celebrating all the donations they received from the community for Smile Cookie for George Jeffrey and the Dew Drop In.
“For the community, it’s all local and everything goes back into these two charities that we have chosen this year. So then it helps out George Jeffrey and the Dew Drop,” said Williamson.
She said she wanted to thank everybody for making this possible.
Michael Quibell, the Dew Drop Inn’s executive director, said they rely heavily on community support to serve a good meal daily, so funds like this will go towards buying nutritional and protein rich foods to “continue to serve that good meal every day.”
“It’ll be incredibly helpful. We figured (it's) about $3 for a hot meal, so that’s about 20,000 hot meals … It’s great,” said Quibell.
He said the Dew Drop Inn and George Jeffrey Children’s Foundation will get just under $60,000 each, which is incredible, amazing and will be “so helpful to our feeding program.”
“I want to thank Thunder Bay for the amazing support. It was such a magical week,” said Quibell.
“So many smiles were generated across the city, across the country, and we really could not do what we do without you. So, thanks and Thunder Bay does have a big heart.”
Krysta Piaskowski is the donor relations and communications officer for the George Jeffreys Children’s Foundation.
“Today is basically about local businesses giving back to the local community,” said Piaskowski.
“So, we’ve been lucky enough to have a good relationship with Tim Hortons for the past several years. We’ve been very lucky that they’ve selected us to receive the funds from their Smile Cookie campaign.”
She said she believes this is the eighth year they’ve received these funds and the largest sum they've gotten to date.
This year, the centre received $59,729, bringing its total from all years of the campaign to about $340,000.
“This means that we are able to raise the money for our centre, so that we can help with any programs and services that the children need to help with physical, social (speech and) any kinds of needs that those kids have,” said Piaskowski
She said it feels awesome to know that their community is so generous.
“Thunder Bay really does have a big heart and we’re really saying that a lot of our volunteers are really dedicated, because they had to come out and they decorated thousands of smile cookies,” said Piaskowski.
“Putting those two blue eyes on that pink smile, it’s a bit harder than you think it is. It takes a lot of time and a lot of dedication. And we’re so grateful for all of our volunteers that come out and show their support.”
She also wanted to thank Thunder Bay for coming out and buying cookies.
“I’m really glad that you guys have such a sweet tooth because it really goes a long way to supporting organizations like ours and the Dew Drop Inn. And it really goes back into the community, so we really appreciate it,” said Piaskowski.
