The results of the Tim Hortons Smile Cookie campaign in September are finally in, and Timmins DARE coordinator Rick Lemieux is smiling like one of those cookies.
The week-long campaign sold 35,205 cookies, meaning $35,205 for DARE and all of its activities in the community and in OPP jurisdiction.
“Every year I see the numbers and it’s going to sound cheesy, but it makes me want to cry,” Lemieux admits, “because I see the support that the community has and I think it’s phenomenal and honestly, I don’t know where we would be without Tim Horton’s and the Smile Cookie campaign.”
He says Northern College police foundations students from Northern College, auxiliary OPP officers and volunteers from the Timmins and OPP DARE boards helped decorate the cookies this year.
“We just had so many volunteers step up and go and help Tim Hortons, because that’s a lot of cookies to make in one week. It’s one dollar per cookie and the entire dollar goes to the program.”
The money will help pay for a leadership camp at Camp Bickell and other activities in the area.
Lemieux adds that the first year of the campaign, in 2003, it made $5,000 for DARE.