Guelph Tim Horton’s stores to donate holiday smile cookie proceeds to food bank

The Guelph Food Bank will be the beneficiary of the inaugural Tim Horton’s Holiday Smile Cookie campaign.

Members of the food bank, along with staff from the Tim Horton’s store on Woolwich Street, and Brayden Hislop and Braeden Bowman of the Guelph Storm were on hand for the official launch on Monday.

All proceeds from the holiday smile cookie campaigns across Canada go to local charities. 50 per cent of the proceeds from the sale of the cookies from the Guelph locations will go to the food bank.

“It is a fantastic campaign and we were thrilled that we were approached,” said Carolyn McLeod-McCarthy, executive director of the food bank. “(The owners) decided that if there was a food bank in their location, then the food bank would be the beneficiary of the smile cookies this year.”

The holiday version of the popular smile cookie is a sugar cookie with white chocolate chips, red and green sprinkles, and the famous happy face. Members of the Storm and the food bank took turns decorating the cookies.

“It was a lot harder than we thought it would be!” said McLeod-McCarthy with a laugh. “The staff were very friendly and they were all set up for us to decorate some cookies.”

The announcement comes as the food bank were at the tail end of their Thanksgiving food drive, which was extended into November.

McLeod-McCarthy said the number of people using the food bank has gone up recently.

“They’ve grown 120 percent over the last two years, which is crazy to think about,” McLeod-McCarthy said. “So we have a lot of work to do in order to help people with food insecurity in our city.”

The food bank is encouraging everyone to purchase holiday smile cookies. There is a link on their website  where people can order cookies in bulk.

The Holiday Smile Cookie campaign runs until this Sunday, Nov. 19.