56 Tim Hortons stores pour some love into Hospice Vaughan
Tim Hortons customers can buy a smile cookie for $1 to help support Hospice Vaughan from Sept. 16 to 22
Yorkregion.com
Sept. 19, 2019
Dina Al-Shibeeb
For a second year in a row, about 56 Tim Hortons stores backed by 15 local owners “in and around Vaughan” garner their efforts together to bring much-needed money for Hospice Vaughan.
From Sept. 16 to 22, customers at Tim Hortons can buy one smile cookie for one dollar each to help support Hospice Vaughan.
“Here in Vaughan, we are supporting our loved ones at home,” said Belinda Marchese, Executive Director of Hospice Vaughan.
“We are building a residential hospice that will open in 2020, we need our citizens to get involved to volunteer to support us, buy a cookie.”
So for, Hospice Vaughan is now building a Centre of Excellence 10-Bed Residential Hospice that will serve an additional 200 end-of-life individuals and will support over 1,000 other individuals impacted by their illness. This new facility also will house the new Hospice Vaughan Institute for Hospice Palliative Care.
Marchese alongside volunteers Louie Chiaino and Mike Soragnese have organized the “2019 Smile Cookie Week Media Challenge,” where York Region Media has participated to show support on Sep. 17.
Hospice ‘brought vitality’ to 79-year-old dying mother
For Chiaino, he saw from a first-hand experience how the hospice has boosted his ailing mother’s spirit before her death, recalling a Marchese motto that “dying is still living.”
“I started volunteering about four years ago in Hospice Vaughan because my mom attended the adult day program, so she used to attend every Wednesday,” he recalled.
“She wished it was three times a week, but unfortunately funding only allows once a week program,” he added.
After his mother “developed new love for her new family at Hospice Vaughan,” Chiaino became involved, he is on the board of directors at the hospice now.
Chiaino described how the facility “brought so much vitality” to his mother and how it made her feel that she “contributed” despite the fact that she was living her last stage of her life alongside others at the hospice.
“It gave her zest to life, and she even turned out to help others at the day program,” he said. “People drew from her energy, and that’s the beauty of this organization.”
It’s no wonder why Chiaino is a big supporter of a hospice and he wishes even more.
“Every community in this country should have a hospice in it,” he concluded confidently.
The funds in figures
The funds of the Smile Cookie will go towards the $12 million goal of Vaughan Hospice.
“We have reached the funds for the outside capital build,” said Marchese. However, “ideally we don’t want the public to think we are all done to raise funds as we have two other components.”
They include continuous efforts to “raise operational dollars for all our programs and services as there is no charge or fee for those we serve,” she explained, adding that this is about 85 per cent covered.
“Beyond this, we will now soon formally engage a new phase 2 campaign to raise more than $2 million for the inside of the building (furnishing/ medical equipment etc.). More to come on this in early 2020.”
Marchese hopes this year will top last year’s $71,000 raised.
So far, hospice Vaughan has been selected by Tim Hortons’ store owners in Vaughan, Woodbridge, Richmond Hill, Maple and Thornhill to be the recipient of the proceeds from the Smile Cookie Campaign.
During the Smile Cookie Week, the proceeds will go to Hospice Vaughan. Meanwhile, the Smile Cookie campaign happening elsewhere in Canada by Tim Hortons is going to channel money to more than 500 local charities across the country.
