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Smile Cookies give Ponoka youth ear-to-ear grin

21270ponokaTimHortons-youthcentreforweb
Jim and Carol Podritske

By Dale Cory

Everyone loves a good cookie.

Everyone loves to see a smiling face.

Throw both ingredients into a bowl — and the result is of huge benefit to the town’s youth.

Thanks to Tim Hortons Smile Cookies, the Ponoka Youth Centre now has an extra $2,810 to spend on programs.

“I would like to send out a big thank you to the residents of Ponoka for their great support for this fundraiser,” said restauranteur Bob Podritske. “We sold 2,767 smile cookies during a three day period in September, and also got $43 of cash donations for a total of $2,810. This has been given to the Ponoka Youth Centre to help fund their programs.

Considering the amount raised, it’s quite obvious people in Ponoka love their cookies.

“It’s huge for the youth centre to receive this money, because it comes directly from people in the community,” says Beth Reitz, executive director of the Ponoka Youth Centre. “The government, through the community spirit foundation, matches those dollars, so the money we get will be matched again by the government. If we didn’t get money from the community, we wouldn’t be here.”

The Ponoka Youth Centre has programs for kids aged six to17 years, and includes everything from after school care, to a drop-in centre for teens on weekends. It’s a place for kids to go after school and on weekends where they can hang with other kids, and be mentored by adults in the community.

“The money from Tim Hortons will go directly into programming, to take care of the costs associated with the programs,” says Reitz. “It may pay for some of the wages of staff, or it could also be used for keeping up equipment and utilities — those sorts of costs.”

For more information, check out: www.ponokayouthcentre.com