There were plenty of smiles at Tim Hortons today.
The local Smile Cookie campaign raised a total of $71,505.92 for local charities, with this year’s proceeds supporting Sault Search and Rescue and Connect the Dots Community Harvest.
Whether rescuing food or rescuing people, both non-profits said this year’s donation will go a long way in helping their work.
“It’s phenomenal. It's unbelievable. The city was so good. Tim Hortons was so good – they helped our members along to get this much money,” said Randall Roy from Sault Search and Rescue.
Funded almost entirely by donations, Search and Rescue carries out ground, water, and the occasional air-based rescue – and this year’s funding will provide substantial help keeping its fleet operational and helping with various rescue efforts.
“It's going to make us more available to the community,” Roy said.
“Imagine the cost of having vehicles running every day, all week. This type of event made that more feasible. On top of that, we're part of a humanitarian workforce now. Across the province, across Canada, for major disasters, if they need help, we can dispatch (people) and go help them.”
For Connect the Dots, this year’s Smile Cookie proceeds will go towards helping the charity buy a new van for deliveries.
The organization rescues food that might otherwise go to waste at local grocery stores for distribution to Sault charities, food banks, and soup kitchens – and it has relied on volunteer and borrowed vehicles to carry out its work over the past eight years.
“We're trying to get this new van on the road for food rescue work to increase the amount of food we're rescuing locally,” said founder Tim Kelly.
“We're at kind of max capacity on the vehicle side of things, and when you go to a grocery store, there's just way too much to do with a car or a small vehicle.”
Run by 14 volunteers, the charity has seen explosive growth since being founded in 2017, and estimates it will rescue upwards of 100,000 pounds of food in 2025 and up to 250,000 pounds next year.
“We've been looking for funding to help us make this happen. Tim Hortons has come through big time, which is just great,” Kelly said. “Without this, it wouldn't happen until we found some other source of funding.”
In total, 66 volunteers from Search and Rescue, Connect the Dots, and the broader community volunteered over 260 hours to decorate Smile Cookies for this year’s campaign.
“It was a lot of shifts, but we had a good time,” Kelly said. “We got to meet the people that work at Tim Hortons, who worked behind the counter decorating cookies. We had a lot of fun.”
Ryan DiTommaso, a local Tim Hortons franchisee, said the community’s support for this year’s campaign was “amazing,” and that this year’s recipients will do great things for the city.
“We looked at many charities, they were the two we selected,” he said.
“Both are going to do amazing things with the money. It's nice to see that money stay in the community and help the community.”