Starting today, one of the simplest fundraisers across the region makes it easy for anyone to participate. Two dollars buys a cookie with a smile at Tim Hortons locations across the region all week long. All proceeds from Smile Cookie sales will benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Chautauqua County.

“It’s so exciting. This is not only an easily accessible way to help us, it’s also really fun. You get a cookie and they have smiles on them,” said Kait Dawson, Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Chautauqua County.

Participating locations in Dunkirk, Fredonia, and several other spots across Chautauqua County will be selling Smile Cookies this week to benefit the Club. Cookies are $2 and are custom-made and decorated with a smile.

“It’s accessible to everyone. Literally anyone can go do it, and that’s what I like about it.

Surrounded by children of the Boys & Girls Club, former Executive Director Jeannie Gallaway smiles as she displays a check from Tim Hortons franchise owners Dave and Gina Kron for more than $8,500 raised through the Smile Cookie campaign last year.

You don’t have to go to some website to donate. You just go to Tim Hortons and you get a cookie. It’s super easy,” Dawson said.

It has become an annual tradition for Tim Hortons franchise owners Gina and Dave Kron to use the Smile Cookie campaign as a way to support the Boys & Girls Club. They decided to shift the focus of the Smile Cookie campaign to a local entity three years ago, rather than having the proceeds benefit a cause in other communities.

For Gina and Dave Kron, the choice was easy: they wanted to help their community, and there is no better way than supporting the kids. The community has bought in, with sales jumping from $1,500-$2,000 each year for other causes to roughly $8,500-$9,000 in each of the past three years to support the Club.

“It shows that as a community, we’re willing to help. We’re willing to give to our children,” Dawson said.

The Smile Cookie campaign is one of the largest fundraising events for Tim Hortons each year, and also one of the most substantial sources of revenue for the Boys & Girls Club. Kron is setting an even higher goal this year of $12,000.

Smile Cookies will be on sale at Tim Hortons locations throughout the community for $2 all week to benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Chautauqua County.

“The community has rallied behind this project because we believe in the Boys & Girls Club, and we believe in the kids in our community,” Gina Kron said. “They deserve a great start and a fun, safe place to be.”

At times, especially at first, Tim Hortons was flooded with so many orders, it was hard to even keep up. This year, bulk order forms are available at participating Tim Hortons locations and at the Boys & Girls Club, located at the St. Hyacinth’s school building on East Lake Shore Drive in Dunkirk. Large orders in bulk can be scheduled for pick-up at any time throughout the week.

In the previous two years of the campaign, the Club was under the leadership of Jeannie Gallaway as Executive Director. Now, Dawson has taken the reins after working closely with the Club through Chautauqua Striders. Together, they have both seen the impact of the Smile Cookie fundraiser on the Club and throughout the community.

“It’s a great testament of generosity and reciprocity in our community,” Gallaway said of the Smile Cookie campaign. She highlighted “amazing stories” to come from the Smile Cookie campaign of community groups supporting each other by purchasing cookies, then those same people paying it forward to others.

“I think that’s the beauty of this campaign. Yes, it’s bringing in money for the Boys & Girls Club, but it literally is spreading smiles across our county,” Gallaway said.

The money raised by the Smile Cookie campaign goes directly toward supporting the Boys & Girls Club’s six-week summer program, including several field trips. Now more than ever, it is challenging to secure funding for extracurricular activities like field trips, but thanks to the Smile Cookie campaign, children at the Boys & Girls Club will have the chance to experience several field trips and create lasting memories this summer.

“(The Club is) a much-needed resource in our community for our local kids, and that’s why we got involved,” Gina Kron said. “It’s a safe environment. They’re playing, they’re learning, they’re growing. It has really been a great project for us.”