Despite an overcast sky, things were looking bright inside Tim Horton’s in Niverville on the morning of June 11. It was the day when the mobility van project organization accepted a cheque for $10,483.50 from the Tim Horton’s smile cookie campaign.
Acting manager for the Tim Horton’s location, Nazli Sharma, presented the cheque.
“All kudos go to the William Kent family, because it is their $10,000 that they have given up,” Sharma says of Niverville’s franchise owners. “They’re ecstatic. When you pay $1.50 for a cookie, $1.50 goes to [the community]. And, for me, working for an organization like that makes me want to work harder every year.”
The smile cookie campaign week took place between late April and early May. Sharma says it took a group of dedicated volunteers to come out and decorate the thousands of cookies sold that week.
The proceeds have been gratefully accepted by another volunteer group who have been working tirelessly towards bringing two mobility vans to the community to ensure everyone can get around, regardless of restrictions.
This kind of local volunteerism doesn’t go unnoticed by Sharma. Of course, she adds, it would be remiss not to recognize the many patrons who supported the cookie campaign this year. About 7,000 smile cookies sold, which equals just better than one cookie per resident of Niverville.
Bonny Friesen is one of the volunteers fundraising for the mobility vans. She says the smile cookie funds exceeded their goal of $10,000. And for this, the committee is incredibly grateful.
Still relying on a grant from the federal government’s Rural Transit Solutions Fund, Friesen says that if their application is approved, they will have met their financial goal for the capital costs of the vans.
If they are not approved, they’ll have enough to purchase one van outright and continue fundraising for the second van.
Also to be considered are the ongoing maintenance costs to run the vans. At this point, the project committee has plans for that as well.
“We have some ideas, like putting [advertisements] on the vans and businesses will pay for the advertising,” Friesen says. “And then I think there’s a provincial grant that we can [apply for].”
