Smile Cookie week starts today, April 27, and runs until Sunday, May 3.
The annual Tim Hortons event helps support local charities and community groups. In Kenora, 100 per cent of the proceeds go directly to Triple P.L.A.Y.
“It’s 30 years since Triple P.L.A.Y. was started up in Kenora,” says Barry Reynard from Triple P.L.A.Y. “It helps underserved kids with funding opportunities to register into sports, culture, arts, programming.”
Reynard says it has allowed them to participate in partnerships, numerous activities and events to give kids the opportunity to play.
You can purchase a decorated Smile Cookie from any Kenora Tim Hortons for $2 each plus tax.
While many enjoy them fresh, Triple P.L.A.Y. Coordinator Victoria Moss says they also freeze very well.
“If you buy them in bulk, have them as a snack for later, add it to your ice cream this summer. There’s lots of different uses.”
To share the spirit, post a photo with your cookie and tag Triple P.L.A.Y. on Facebook or Instagram.
Full Interview with Barry Reynard and Victoria Moss:
Transcription:
Hi, it’s Talia Saley here, and I’m here with Barry Raynard, the Triple Play Coordinator, who is passing the role to Victoria Moss, who’s the new Triple Play Coordinator. So thanks for joining me today.
Oh, good morning, Talia. Thanks for having us.
Yeah. So let’s talk about Smile Cookie Week, which is starting, I believe, April 27th? That’s correct. This is coming Monday. Can you tell me more about that?
Yeah. So Smile Cookie is a full week of fun. Basically, you can visit either of the Tim Hortons locations right here in Kenora, and 100% of the proceeds of those cookie sales goes right back into our community and supports Triple Play at Kenora.
Can you tell me more about Triple Play and what it does for the community for those who maybe aren’t so familiar with Triple Play?
So Triple Play has been, it’s 30 years since Triple Play was started up in Kenora. It is going strong. It came out of COVID really strong, and what it does, it helps underserved kids with funding opportunities to register into sports, culture, arts, programming, and it’s also helped us participate in partnerships and numerous activities and events throughout the city to help raise kids and keep awareness to keep kids opportunities to play.
That’s amazing. So for the Smile Cookie Week, where will those funds go specifically within Triple Play, do you think?
As Vic mentioned, 100% of the Smile Cookies stay in Kenora. It helps us run our equipment locker that we’ve got a great loan program for kids to come and get equipment. It also helps us do registrations for kids in all programs right across the board for sports and cultural arts activities. We go from guitar lessons right up to minor hockey. Also, it helps us put on events like we’ve had the last couple of years in partnership with our Jets alumni, which has created not only just an awareness within the community, but sponsoring kids, but also creating more partners and sponsors that we rely heavily on to help Triple Play continue to move on.
So Victoria, how do you feel like starting this new role, taking on the coordinator role? How has it been so far?
I’m just excited. Barry obviously has a lot of enthusiasm for this work, and I’m just excited to continue that enthusiasm and drive and support kids and youth in our community.
That’s amazing. Well, so Cookie Week starts April 27th all the way to May 3rd, so it’s that entire week. So it’s the two Tim Hortons locations?
Yes, correct.
Okay, awesome. How much is one cookie, by the way? Do you know the price?
Yeah, so cookies are $2. They’ve also introduced little stuffies this year, so those are $5, and again, those proceeds would go back to Triple Play.
Well that’s awesome. Well, is there also anywhere that people can go for more information? Is there a Triple Play Facebook page or social media page? Where can people go?
I forget. Okay, so Vic does a great job. The one thing that the passing of the torch, as we said, what Vic brings is an amazing social media site. So our Facebook Triple Play, you go to our Triple Play site and you’ll see that, but also any Tim Hortons, if you miss an ad on TV or the radio, I’m surprised. Tim Hortons does such a fabulous job of promoting this, not just locally, but nationally. And it’s their largest fundraiser that brings so much attention and awareness to the great causes across the country. But Triple Play has been the benefit recipient for a number of years now, and Kamal and the crew and Harmon, they’ve been absolutely fabulous for us. So when we started or when I came back, we raised, I think the total was around $8,000, and at one time we pushed the cookies as high as $32,000. So the last couple of years, probably four years plus, over $100,000 through small cookies. And as we say, one bite at a time, we’re raising money for kids. And the fact that 100% of every cookie stays here for Triple Play is our largest fundraiser all year. Wow. And I’d like to just add that I’ve made a personal goal, but we’ll call it a group goal. I’m looking to raise $30,000. So 15,000 cookies this year, which basically means one cookie for every Canoran. And I think we can definitely push it to that level. So I’m excited to see what we can do.
Yeah. And I think a good way is to push people maybe, when you’re going to work, bring cookies for all your coworkers.
Yes. That way. They also freeze very well. So if you buy them in bulk, have them as a snack for later, add it to your ice cream this summer. There’s lots of different uses. But definitely sharing the love, spreading the cookie love, maybe. And I’ve done that before. I’ve purchased for friends and family and then kind of dispersed them throughout the day. And nobody doesn’t love a smell cookie.
Yeah. I agree. I feel like there’s something about a cookie with just a little bit of icing and a little bit of decoration. It’s intriguing to me. I’m like, I need to get it. So I totally get that. Is there any Triple Play events that are actually coming up soon that people can start adding to their calendar?
Well, it’s always a busy time transition into spring, summer. We get our registrations for most of our outdoor sports. Our largest time for registration is fall. We have just finished up and continue to work on our Project 11 mental health. We have a continued support for that into our school programs. We’re planning to look at a very exciting opportunity coming up, but we’re going to roll that out, announcement out as we go. It’ll probably be not till the winter of 2026, but we’ll be an exciting partnership again with our Jets alumni. Vicki and I will be attending the Jets alumni golf tournament to promote and market. One of the key things I’m not going away, but I’m kind of sliding away into our foundation working with our community foundation endowment fund to grow that is very important for us in partnership with the community foundation, along with any other partners that we can do. We just finished an amazing partnership with the hearts program over at Boston pizza that created some great opportunities for us to keep registering kids. You know, one of the things that’s exciting about small cookies, it, it just supports probably some of the projects we were not able to get into in the last three years. We have a tremendous partnership with the muse, Shelby and the gang over at the muse do some, some great work for us. We’ve also been into the schools. We’re helping with the rowing club. We’ve helped with the ski club this past winter on, on registrations and, and I always have to put my plug in for Dave down at board anyone. He’s got an amazing program for kids. And I, you know, and the one highlight, I’d say that both Vicki and I continue to work on. We had our take a kid fishing, a 77 kid showed up in the coldest day of February, I think. And then, but I can’t say enough about the work the OPP and treaty three are doing, and they do a great partnership with us with the indigenous solutions program. So, so many variety of cross sections, and we’re really happy just to make the connection back into the support of a grand piano, but that now we’re hearing kids getting lessons in piano that may never, ever have had the chance to, to take that opportunity. So it’s, it’s triple play is solid in our community continues to grow. And Vicki is going to take it to even better heights.
Yeah, well, I’m excited to see all the products you have coming up. So thank you so much for talking about smile cookie week coming up. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?
I just wanted to mention, we also have an Instagram page. So you can follow us on Facebook or Instagram for latest updates, especially next week when all the cookie fun is happening. We’ll have some awesome community partners coming out to decorate. So if you see us out at the restaurants, come on by give us a high. We love to chat with everyone in the community and thank them personally for committing and supporting us with a small cookie program. Yeah, and I think that’s the part Vicki that’s so cool is that we we have so many decorators, I think we’ve got four to five decorators each morning, every day, every day at both restaurants, yeah, both restaurants. And those are our partners that are that, you know, they have absolutely no problem coming out and decorating a cookie. And the last thing I’d say is I’ll challenge, I’ll buy the first two dozen cookies, and I’m going to drop some off to tally in the station. And I’m going to challenge Vicki to match that and, and if I’m going to pick up a phone if Vicki can challenge someone else, and that’s what we hope that corporations can do. Challenge a friend, challenge a family, eat away and as I said, every every bite counts for us. Certainly.
For sure. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thanks Barry. Thanks Victoria for being here today. Thanks.
