Tim Hortons smile cookie sales raise record amount for local FCSS

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Strathmore Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) and local Tim Hortons’ locations are celebrating having raised $15,110 from the sales of smile cookies in September.

Over the duration of the annual smile cookie campaign, 100 per cent of the proceeds from sales of the cookies go towards a charity of the Tim Hortons location’s choosing. In Strathmore, the three locations select Strathmore FCSS to receive the funds annually.

According to Catherine Walsh, community and social development manager with the FCSS, the goal for this year’s campaign was to sell more cookies than the Town of Strathmore has population.

“We were pretty excited and we were proud of the community and really grateful for the generosity that the community has provided for this fund,” said Walsh. “It’s really important to recognize the community and how they’ve provided such a huge amount of generosity for us and it gives us such flexibility on how to meet the needs of people in our community who might be struggling.”

Walsh explained that all of the money that is generated for the FCSS through the smile cookies goes right back into the local community to help those in need.

Though she wasn’t able to give an exact metric, she added $15,110 will make a significant impact for folks who could use a helping hand.

“It can stretch pretty far, actually. It just depends on what the needs are of community members coming into see us. It’s hard to say how far it can go because everybody coming in is at a different place in their life, so it just depends what the need is,” she said.

“We spend the money on different things, the funding is flexible – meaning it allows us to provide essential needs such as food, shelter, transportation, photo IDs and any other gaps in the community we feel we need to provide.”

The 15,110 cookies sold this year represents a record number of sales in comparison to previous years. 

Local Tim Hortons owner Kevin Korpi said the math added up to over 700 cookies being sold per restaurant, per day at each of the three locations in Strathmore.

“When we started with FCSS five years ago, it was about $7,000 that we raised. So, over the course of five years, it’s more than doubled in success,” said Korpi. “It feels really good. That was sort of a goal we had was to beat one cookie per person and we smashed it. It was way over that so it was really incredible.”

According to Korpi, prior to the switch, all the Tim Hortons locations surrounding the Calgary region used to donate their smile cookie revenue to the Calgary Health Trust. The change to local charities of their own choosing was only a relatively recent development.

In the five years since the partnership started, Korpi said the smile cookies have raised over $50,000 for the Strathmore FCSS.