TIM HORTONS FOUNDATION CAMPS – 2020 GRATITUDE REPORT
THANK YOU
If you take one message away from the stories and numbers that follow, it’s a deep, heartfelt thank you.
Despite it being a challenging year, you’ve allowed us to show-up for our campers in their time of need.
None of that would have been possible without your support, partnership, and investment.
We can open new horizons of possibility to all youth, helping young people from underserved communities achieve their potential.
And we can do it because of you.
A MESSAGE FROM OUR PRESIDENT
Through it all, we maintained our focus on showing up for young people from disadvantaged circumstances in every way possible. 2020 marked 46 years of Tims Camps. In that nearly half-a-century, more than 300,000 youth from every community where there is a Tim Hortons restaurant have gone through our programming. They’ve hiked, rafted, and canoed. They’ve slept in tents and under the stars. They’ve made lasting friendships. But most importantly, they’ve discovered reserves of strength, newfound skills, and untapped resilience—abilities that have helped them achieve their potential.
When we were forced to close in-person camps last summer, the Foundation team poured all of our energy into creating a safe and meaningful alternative that kept the integrity and impact of our multi-year program. Young people were among the hardest impacted by school closures and lockdowns. We devised a digital camp experience, tailored to the same measurable impacts we’ve always focused on, to ensure youth got the support they needed.
But we did more than that. With the foresight of our supporters, we created new projects allowing us to show up for our communities too. That’s what you’ll find in these pages: examples of ways both small and large that our team rose to the challenge this year presented. But change cannot happen without passionate people pushing it forward, and we are lucky to count incredibly dedicated supporters in our corner.
To the Tims Hortons corporate team, Tim Hortons restaurant owners, managers, and team members, to Tim Hortons guests, our corporate sponsors and our community partners—thank you for an impactful 2020. And thank you for your continued support to help youth from underserved communities rewrite their stories and reach their potential.
Graham Oliver
President & Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner
YEAR IN REVIEW
2020 was a year like no other. Thanks to our donors and supporters, it was also a year of achievements.
You helped us to:
- Provide 7980 camp experiences through eCamp, our Summer Program, and School Program.
- Deliver Camp in a Box programming focusing on social and emotional development to 75 schools in under-resourced neighbourhoods, reaching 4,100 students
- Donate 46,079 pounds of food to 11 food banks in communities surrounding Tims Camps.
- Dedicate more than 5000 hours to serving our community at 19 community organizations, including food banks, meals on wheels, soup kitchens, and shelters.
- Ensure 24/7 access to mental health support for all Tims Campers through a new partnership with Kids Help Phone.
- Raise an incredible $10.5 million in support of Tims Camps during Camp Day.
- Create new ways to support Tims Camps, with #CampinforCampDay, Climb for the Camps, Give the Gift of Camp and an in-restaurant Snowflake holiday campaign raising, $678,807 CAD in all.
- Contribute cleaning products and personal protective equipment, including 735 medical gowns, 1200 N95 masks, and 4050 surgical gloves, to local hospitals.
- Enable 464 campers to fully participate in our virtual programming, overcoming barriers of access and accessibility at no cost to families.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
We want to thank our dedicated and passionate Board of Directors for their support of the Tim Hortons Foundation Camps. With their guidance, we are able deliver our leading youth development program each year to youth from underserved circumstances.
- Graham Oliver (President) – President, Tim Hortons Foundation Camps, Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Ontario
- Duncan Fulton (Chair) – Chief Corporate Officer, RBI
- Amit Seth (Vice-Chair) – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Ontario
- Julie Breau (Officer) – Head of Legal Centre of Excellence, RBI
- Mark Angelini – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Quebec
- Hope Bagozzi – Chief Marketing Officer, Tim Hortons
- Caroline Barham – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Western Canada
- Tanya Doucette – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Western Canada
- Rob Eatough – Superintendent of Education, School Operations
- Mike Hancock – Chief Operating Officer, Tim Hortons
- Greg Hogarth – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Ontario
- Hugo Ouellet – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Quebec
- Brad Rixmann – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Atlantic Canada
- Jim Shaw – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Atlantic Canada
- Awanish Sinha – Partner, McCarthy Tétrault
- Mark Trombley – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Ontario
- Michael John Van De Wiel – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, Atlantic Canada
- Ricardo Azevedo – Regional President, Tim Hortons USA
- Diana Ulsrud – Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner, USA
WHO WE ARE
The Tim Hortons Foundation Camps is a charitable youth development organization that serves youth from disadvantaged circumstances.
Through year-round Summer and School Programs, we invest in youth from Tim Hortons communities across North America. Building on the strengths that exist within them, youth develop into empowered and engaged community members, able to change their story.
More than canoe trips and camping, Tims Camps supports youth in developing important life skills. Everything we do is measurable and impactful. Whether it’s changes or shifts in campers’ abilities to build positive relationships, an increase in self-awareness, or the ability to develop positive identities, attitudes and behaviours, we intentionally design our youth development program to enable social and emotional skills, and learning and innovation skills.
We work with Tim Hortons restaurant owners, schools from priority neighbourhoods, youth serving agencies like Big Brothers, Big Sisters and Children’s aid to select kids who would benefit from a Tims Camps experience.
Tims Camps has seven camp locations across Canada and the United States that welcomes youth year round for our Summer and School Programs. These camp experiences are completely free to campers and their families thanks to our passionate restaurant owners, team members, guests, corporate sponsors, and individual donors.
OUR PROGRAMS
Multi-day, multi-visit & multi-impact. Our programs offer a deep investment in youth, whether in-person at summer camp, in classrooms and at camp during the school year, or virtually through our digital programming.
As youth progress through our Summer Program, their experiences become more challenging, featuring overnight wilderness trips and camp activities designed to build leadership, teamwork and goal setting skills.
Our School Program is geared towards under-resourced neighbourhoods, with youth attending camp twice over the course of the school year. At camp, youth learn skills geared towards positive relationships, academic success and community engagement, and in between sessions they complete a community service project.
Finally, new this year, we unveiled a digital eCamp experience to provide a safe, supportive, and nurturing space for youth during the pandemic.
HOW CAMP CHANGES LIVES
Tims Camps focuses on developing critical life skills – like resilience, persistence and responsibility – that help youth from underserved communities thrive and reach their potential. We survey campers and teachers to quantify the change and improve our program, ensuring we’re meeting the needs of the campers we serve.
Evidence from our multi-year, multi-visit camper and teacher impact survey data shows a positive impact on camper development, growth, and achievement in these important life skills and outcomes.
WHAT CHANGE LOOKS LIKE
In the early years of her childhood, as she bounced around from country to country and continent to continent, Peace Akintade never quite felt as though she fit in.
Eight years later, Peace is a multi-talented stage director, actor, spoken word artist, saught-after public speaker, and Saskatchewan’s Youth Poet Laureate.
And she says that personal transformation really began the first time she attended a Tim Hortons Foundation Camp.
CAMP DAY
For 30 years, Camp Day has been our Flagship Fundraiser.
What started with one restaurant in one community has spread across the continent. Tim Hortons restaurant owners, team members, and guests have raised over $200 million, funds that have developed life-changing programming and sent over 300,000 youth to camp.
Camp Day 2020 was unlike any other. Postponed due to the pandemic, with many restaurant owners facing lockdowns, it took creativity, flexibility, and above all dedication. In the end, it was a huge success, raising an incredible $10.5 million to support Tims Camps.
Thank you to everyone at Tim Hortons, to all the owners, and their incredible teams. Thank you also to the guests who know that every coffee truly can change a life.
Leading up to Camp Day, Tim Hortons told the story of real former campers, sharing how their time at Tims Camps impacted their lives.
We believe every youth deserves the opportunity to change their story.
FUNDRAISING
With in-person fundraisers cancelled or postponed throughout 2020, Tims Camps pivoted and ran many engaging and successful virtual fundraisers. These events, combined with select in-restaurant fundraisers, saw much needed revenue continue to come in to support Tims Camps.
Thank you to our corporate camp champions!
CLIMB FOR THE CAMPS
A hardy group of owners were getting ready to climb to the Mt. Everest Base Camp to raise money for Tims Camps when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March. Fortunately, this amazing group was resilient, just like we try to teach our campers. Once the actual climb was cancelled, they created an alternative socially distanced fundraiser.
#ClimbfortheCamps encouraged individual supporters to walk, run, bike, or hike 130 km (the roundtrip distance to the Mt. Everest base camp), raising $70,000!
CAMP IN FOR CAMP DAY
Since we couldn’t camp out this summer, we camped in! Tims Camps supporters showed off their best at-home campsite setup on social media to raise funds for the Foundation!
This creative campaign got entire families involved and generated over $45,000!
GIVE THE GIFT OF CAMP
This holiday season appeal offered our donors the opportunity to purchase a selection of symbolic, tangible gifts to help support a camper’s camp experience; from a 9-day camper experience, family style meal for a cabin, bus transportation and much more!
Give the Gift of Camp raised over $5,000 CAD!
SNOWFLAKE
During the month of December, participating restaurant owners asked guests for a $1 (or more!) donation to Tims Camps in exchange for writing their name on a snowflake to be displayed in-restaurant.
Thanks to the generosity of Tims guests, this decorative campaign raised $437,420 CAD & $6,852 USD
HOLIDAY GIVING
To go along with the in-restaurant Snowflake fundraiser, our restaurant owners also donated $1 of every purchase of Tim Hortons holiday merchandise back to Tims Camps.
These donations totaled $457,423 CAD & $29,160 USD!
NEW THIS YEAR
For the first time in Tims Camps 46 year history, we didn’t welcome campers to camp this summer. As lockdowns took affect across Canada and the United States, and young people struggled to adjust to the isolation, anxiety, and fear, we came up with a new way to stay connected and moving forward.
INTRODUCING TIMS eCAMP
Each year more than 13,000 youth from nearly every Tim Hortons community attend a Tim Hortons Foundation Camp and participate in life changing programming. Not this year. With camps closed, we launched an all-new initiative, Tims eCamp, offering campers a safe and meaningful experience. Tims eCamp was eight weeks of structured yet flexible programming that youth could participate in. Each camper was grouped into eCabins by location and assigned eCounsellors who facilitated led activities. eCampers participated in arts and crafts, they took cooking classes, played instruments together, learned new dances, and played team games, like escape rooms. All of this programming was creative, fun, and engaging, ensuring youth had moments of levity amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic. But as important, each activity support healthy social and emotional development, and important life skills, like team building, resilience, and following directions.
TIMS eCAMP TECH
Lack of access to a device or the internet should never be a barrier to meaningful opportunities for growth. Yet in Canada and the US, roughly 10 per cent of households do not have internet access while effective devices are too expensive for many.
To ensure all our campers could fully participate in eCamp, we provided individualized technology solutions for 464 campers based on their individual needs. No matter the access barrier, Tims Camps found a solution.
CAMP IN A BOX
When Tims eCamp wrapped at the end of August, our team quickly shifted to reimagine our School Program for 2020. Knowing we wouldn’t be able to bring schools to camp, we decided to bring the camp spirit to schools through “Camp in a Box”.
These boxes were filled with our signature GR8 Bead lesson plans, physically distanced camp games, Kids Help Phone resources, Camp Day bracelets, journals, teacher appreciation gifts and activities suited for classroom learning.
The response was immediate. Teachers loved the reminders of camp while youth enjoyed felt remembered and valued. “Our classes lit up with smiles and cheers when they saw the box,” one teacher reported. “It’s the little things that make them happy during the pandemic and it was really nice to see.”
The feedback was so positive, schools received a second box in winter and a third in spring.
RENEWED FOCUS ON MENTAL HEALTH
At camp, youth have access to nurses and Camper Support Specialists for all their physical and mental health needs. Shifting to a virtual camp model brought on additional challenges in ensuring camper mental health and online safety, precisely at a time of burgeoning mental health struggles and rates of anxiety among youth. In order to fully support our youth’s needs in this critical area, we formed a partnership with Kids Help Phone. Through Kids Help Phone, Tims campers were given 24/7 mental health support through bilingual crisis responders via text.
NEW PROGRAMMING, NEW LOOK, SAME IMPACT
Since we unveiled our new brand in 2019, we’ve been working on a redesigned website that captures the magic of camp and the impact of our programming. <strong>This year we launched www.timscamps.com</strong>, a critical hub of information and resources for all of our key stakeholders. The new website features updated and streamlined information on who we are, what we do, and how we do it. It outlines our signature programs – Summer and School – as well as our virtual experience, Tims eCamp, and it centers the stories of youth, our most important stakeholders.
SHOWING UP FOR OUR COMMUNITIES
When Tim Hortons communities were in need during the COVID-19 pandemic, Tims Camps stepped up. From community gardens and partnerships with local food banks to donating personal protective equipment to local health authorities and wellness supplies to local shelters, our camp teams were there when the community needed us most.
Community Groups We Stood Beside:
- Banff Food Rescue
- Brantford Food Bank
- Maison de la Famille de Quyon
- Cuisine Collective Maisonneuve-Hochelaga
- Raw Carrot
- Dream Centre
- Bouffe Pontiac
- Power Group AB
- Canmore Arts Place
- Canmore meals on wheels
- Bow Valley Food Alliance
- St-Andrews Soup Kitchen
- Willow Lodge
- Tata in Bloom
- Tata Breakfast Program
- Brant Food for Thought
- Chestnut Council Canada
- Calgary Food Bank
- Green River State Park
- Paris Food Drive
- Butter Run Trail Clean-up
- Meals on Wheels, Tatamagouche, NS
FOUNDATION CHAMPIONS
Tim Hortons restaurant owners have been our biggest champions since Tims Camps was founded.
In 2019, we made the relationship official, launching the Foundation Champions group. Composed of owners who’ve taken a leadership role in the Foundation, Champions have been instrumental in all of our initiatives this year. They are our boots on the ground, acting as regional representatives, support camper recruitment in their area, leading fundraising initiatives, spearheading Camp Day awareness and challenges, and guiding the future of Tims Camps.
These owners go above and beyond the call of duty and we are truly grateful. If you’d like to join their ranks and become a Foundation Champion, contact us today!
FINANCIAL HEALTH
We can only support healthy youth and healthy communities if we ensure our Foundation’s financial health.
We vigilantly evaluate our investments, expenditures, and revenue streams, ensuring we can provide meaningful, multi-year camp experience to youth from every Tim Hortons community.
TOTAL REVENUE (in 1,000s)
- $10458 – Camp Day
- $3550 – Donations from RBI
- $2650 – Coin Program
- $2478 – Fees for services and other receipts
- $891 – Warm Wishes, Tim Hortons Merchandise and Timmies Minis
- $588 – Corporate Donations
- $542 – Individual Donations
- $275 – Special Events
ANNUAL OPERATING EXPENSES (in 1,000s)
- 79% – $18761 – Charitable Program
- 13% – $3060 – Administration
- 8% – $1906 – Fundraising
Our fiscal year ended October 31st, 2020. Financial audited reports can be found at timscamps.com.
THANK YOU!!
Despite the many challenges everyone faced in 2020, our campers, staff and supporters showed true Tims Camps spirit and accomplished a great deal.
None of this would have been possible without the support of all of you!
On behalf of the Tim Hortons Foundation Camps, we extend a heartfelt THANK YOU to all of our passionate, hardworking supporters!
RR#2, 264 GLEN MORRIS RD. E, ST. GEORGE, ON, N0E 1N0 | 519.448.1248 | TIMSCAMPS.COM
Charitable No. Canada: 119264885 RR0001
Charitable No. USA: (501(c)) 31-1681446
