MOOSOMIN — For three years in a row, Moosomin Tim Hortons has sold the most Smile Cookies in Saskatchewan, and this year from April 28 to May 4, the town is hoping to do that again, breaking its records of $45,000 last year, $35,000 in 2023, and $30,000 in 2022.
This spring’s Smile Cookie recipient will be MacLeod Elementary School. The school is raising funds for the south side of the playground in anticipation of kids from the Playfair Daycare using that space as well.
“The playground is going to be beneficial to both the daycare and McLeod Elementary School, so it seems like a great fit and a no-brainer to us to partner with them,” said Greg Crisanti, owner of the Moosomin Tim Horton’s.
When Tammy Cole, Principal at MacLeod Elementary, applied to the Smile Cookie campaign, she thought it would be perfect timing as the new building for Playfair Daycare is slated to go up on the south side of the school.
“I actually requested to become the Smile Cookie recipient this year to coincide with the Play Fair Daycare being built on our playground,” Cole said. “So when the building begins, we will have two soccer fields that are no longer going to be there that are very old and obsolete. Our hope is to be able to purchase a set of soccer nets that will go in our track area.”
The government of Saskatchewan is also providing funding to match community fundraising efforts for school playground equipment up to $50,000, an announcement that was made in the 2025 budget.
“It’s exciting to have the potential to help projects like this reach their goal quicker,” says Moosomin-Montmartre MLA Kevin Weedmark. “By providing matching funding, schools like MacLeod Elementary can double their fundraising dollars, giving a big boost to their project.”
If the funds allow, there’s another project Cole would like to see come to fruition as well.
“One of the other projects we’d like to do if we raise enough funds is to put in a kickball back stop, which would be used for kickball or baseball, which is another thing that we used to have on our playground and then we pulled it out due to it just being really old and not working anymore. So we’re just trying to do some replacement of some things.”
Some other suggestions have come from MacLeod students themselves via the school survey, where Grade 4 and 5 students are asked for their feedback on how the school can improve within the building and the playground.
“They always ask for more monkey bars, and they ask for a merry-go-round,” Cole said.
Currently, there is not a firm number on what all the items on the school’s wish list for the south side will cost, but Cole noted they’re looking into estimates.
“That’s the exciting thing about it is the more we make, the more options we will have and be able to put in place,” she said, reflecting on the significance of the 2023 campaign. “That jump started our fund. Without something as big as that, we would be so far behind. So the Tim Horton’s Smile Cookie campaign makes a huge difference to anybody who’s doing that fundraising. It is impactful.”
Fundraising bar set high
Last year, the local Smile Cookie campaign reached an even higher bar while once again claiming the number one spot for sales in the province. In 2024, $45,000 was raised for the Play Fair Daycare.
“We always try to do our best, no matter what we set forward with,” Crisanti said. “We’re getting a head start already, our pre-sale forms are out, our pre-sale online applications are open, and we’re pounding the pavement as we speak to start selling some cookies because we’re looking forward to a busy week for a great cause!”
Pre-orders are important not only to raise money, but so the restaurant can better gauge how much stock to order.
“It helps our bakers, it helps us with our inventory for ordering, and then we give the recipients, which is MacLeod Elementary School—a breakdown earlier of how much funds they’ve raised to date before the week’s even over, because those are pre-sold,” Crisanti said. “So it’s great to know what’s coming in, and it helps everybody. We never want to run out of cookies and want to have them available no matter what. If someone needs five dozen, six dozen through drive-thru, you just never know. But like I said, 100 per cent of the proceeds are going to the school, so we need to make sure we’re prepared as far as having the cookies ready in our kitchen and then having our volunteers help and have them decorated so we can sell them.”
Paper copies of the pre-order forms are available at the Moosomin location and online at timhortonswestman.ca.
Volunteers a key ingredient
A large part of what makes the annual Smile Cookie campaign a success is the volunteer base that pitches in. As Cole explained, there are a variety of people from around Moosomin taking part again this year.
“We’ll have a combination of people,” she said, confirming MacLeod students and teachers will be in attendance. “We will also have our school community council members, and they’re going to decorate cookies for us. We take our student leadership team, so that’s some of our older Grade 4 and 5 students.”
The students especially seem to have fun during Smile Cookie week.
“The last time we did it, we had an absolute blast cheering people as they went through the drive-thru lane,” Cole said. “We had kids inside decorating while some were cheering people on, and it works fantastic because kids, they sell things for being cute and being kids! It’s amazing what they do. And you get so excited to get behind it. It’s really awesome.”
The school is actively seeking sponsors for each day, and volunteers are always welcome to join in the fun.
“We have groups of people within our community that just love to come and help, that sign themselves up or just show up to come and do decorating of cookies,” Cole said. “It’s amazing who comes out that just always wants to help with it, no matter whether they’re really connected to the school, they literally show up.
“The community spirit to support whatever organizations getting that fund is amazing because they just literally all want to help. That’s Moosomin. Everybody just wants to help. That’s why we have such success with any kind of fundraising we do in our community."
Fundraising continues for north playground
The playground on the north side of MacLeod Elementary was the target of funds from the 2023 Smile Cookie campaign. Currently, there’s over $87,000 raised for the revitalization of the north side playground, which is in more need than ever of an update, given the condition of one piece that didn’t fare so well over the winter season.
“We have a slide that is currently broken,” Cole said. “Over this winter, it cracked and it’s blocked off. We cannot use it, so it is truly aged out.”
A recent boost for the north playground came from Jeannot Electric, who held a matching dollars fundraiser to mark Alyssa Jeannot’s birthday.
“We were going to donate to the playground in the spring anyway, and this was kind of a an easy way to double down on that donation,” Jeannot explained, crediting the idea to former Home Hardware owners Robert and Rose Mullet, who held a similar campaign for donations to the Moosomin Airport in 2024. “Robert and Rose are great friends of my parents, so I have to give them a little bit of credit for planting that seed with their idea last year, inspiring me and our business to look for ways to implement that.”
Jeannot was able to present the school with $6,190 in funds raised, bringing the total number to $87,483.52.
“It’s a good fundraiser to get behind,” Jeannot said. “I feel like it kind of did get a little bit forgotten there for a bit. I’ve got three little ones at home, and they’re excited about it, so it’s hard for me to forget about it, because they’re in my ear all the time!”
Cole called the donation from Jeannot Electric “heartwarming,” noting that it’s a great way to keep the continued fundraising efforts on the radar.
“We are grateful for the Jeannot family and Jeannot Electric,” Cole said. “She challenged everyone to donate, and she would match it. It was really heartwarming that she wanted to initiate that for us and to try to raise some more funds and awareness.”
Cole pointed out that it’s not just the MacLeod students who enjoy the playground, but high-school students and visitors to Moosomin as well.
“Our playground is so well trafficked and utilized,” she said. “In the summer, it’s a hub. There’s always kids over here all times of the day. We have tons of traffic in Moosomin that are not our local people, tourists that come, stop, and look for that great place to let the kids and their families relax and get out of the vehicle.”
Last year, the provincial government launched a new program to help fund school playgrounds with $3.75 million annually. It is expected that the program will benefit around 75 projects eligible to receive up to $50,000 in matched funding each year.
“We’ve been in communication, so we’re waiting to see if we could possibly apply for that,” said Cole. Receiving that funding could help reach even further dreams, such as a multi-purpose gazebo.
