When the cookies crumble, children benefit

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This article was published 15/09/2021 (1829 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When the world starts to crumble, cookies are always there to help pick up the pieces.

That’s been delicious news for the Children’s Rehabilitation Foundation, which for the past seven years has relied on Tim Hortons’ annual Smile Cookie campaign to help it raise critical fundraising dough.

For the first five years, my buddy Big Daddy Tazz the comedian and I helped kick off the campaign by taking part in a cookie-decorating contest that resembled a European soccer riot mixed with a kindergarten Christmas pageant.

But for the past two pandemic-fuelled years, it hasn’t been possible to have a throng of media teams crowd into centre court at Polo Park shopping centre to launch the campaign, during which the proceeds from every $1 Smile Cookie sold in the city until this Sunday go to help local non-profit organizations.

This year’s campaign (Sept. 13-19) is not only helping the rehabilitation foundation pay for programs and specialized equipment for disabled children and youths up to the age of 21, but is also helping the St. Amant Foundation support Manitoba children and adults with developmental disabilities and autism.

Instead of allowing us to duke it out in person for the coveted Smile Cookie Cup, the rehabilitation foundation once again dropped off boxes of cookies at the homes and offices of 20 local media personalities, asking us to decorate them with gooey icing, then post photographs of our creations on our social-media accounts.

Which explains why Jane Kidd-Hantscher, the new executive director of the rehabilitation foundation, pulled into my driveway at the beginning of the week to deliver two dozen Tim Hortons’ chocolate-chunk cookies — one box for me to eat, and a second to decorate.

As I tried not to drool on the cookies, Jane explained the Smile Cookie campaign is a lifeline for the foundation, because most charities’ fundraising efforts have taken a huge hit from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s a huge deal for us,” Jane told me. “The money goes to support the programs, services and special equipment that goes to children living with disabilities. It helps improve their lives. It’s very important people realize we are still in a pandemic environment.

“It’s about getting back to what things were like before COVID-19. We need to raise more money to build back to pre-pandemic levels of support. We’re starting to build our way out of that (pandemic gloom) but there’s still a long way to go. We want people to visit their local Tim’s and buy as many Smile Cookies as they possibly can.”

In the first year of the pandemic, Smile Cookies raised a record $175,296, with all the funds going to help the foundation pay for specialized equipment — everything from adaptive bicycles and wheelchairs to iPads to help kids communicate with their families — and inclusive leisure programs.

This year, the cookie cash will also support St. Amant Foundation. “We have over 2,000 people who will certainly be smiling with the support from this campaign. Huge thank you to Tim Hortons and everyone purchasing cookies,” Juliette Mucha, director of St. Amant Foundation, gushed in a statement.

Last year, I used the blue icing to create a messy non-medical face mask and blobs of pink icing, embedded with chocolate chips, for the eyes. This week I tried something totally different — purchasing tubes of gooey yellow and black icing to create a (bad word) wasp so big it had to be spread over two cookies.

This has been the worst wasp season in memory, so it seemed like a good idea to make a Smile Cookie Wasp and then stuff it in my gaping cake hole. Sadly, icing is a hard medium to work with, so my wasp looks as though it was fatally smushed in a head-on collision with a semi-trailer’s windshield.

Like last year, had the in-person cookie slugfest gone ahead, we would have been judged by the rehabilitation foundation’s youth ambassador, five-year-old Kyrie Brinkman, who lives with spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy and needs support to stand and walk.

Kyrie’s mom, Tammy, said her daughter is still thrilled to be part of Smile Cookie week because she likes the attention and “because she really loves snack foods.”

The foundation has been a game-changer, providing Kyrie with everything from an iPad to help her communicate to a special seat that allows her to ride on toboggans and airplanes to a walker and a specialized bike that gives her the freedom to ride like other children.

“It’s absolutely a life-changer,” Tammy said of the foundation’s support. “For Kyrie, the more exercise she gets, the better, so things don’t get even tighter. We try to keep her moving as much as possible.

“It helps her to be included and be part of the action. Without these things, she wouldn’t be able to have the same experiences as everybody else. The Children’s Rehabilitation Foundation are like miracle workers. It makes such a difference to these kids and their families.”

So stop whatever you are doing, visit the nearest Tim’s, and buy as many Smile Cookies as possible. If you get one with a wasp on it, let it socially distance before shoving it in your mouth. I’m just saying.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca