A first of its kind fundraiser in Chestermere was held at The Pointe restaurant at Lakeside Greens this past week raising over $18,000 for the Tim Horton Children’s Foundation.
Local Tim Horton’s owner Andrew Marriott teamed up with Pointe Restaurant owner Brett Beninger to host a Texas Hold ‘Em style poker tournament. This fun filled night brought together 150 participants for an evening of dining, games and drinks.
The amount raised grew above and beyond expectations of $15,000 which included a generous donation from Alex Halat, from the local Chestermere / Langdon Oilmen’s Association.
Contestants paid a $60 entry fee to start them off in the games with experience levels ranging from novice to expert. The town’s mayor, Patricia Matthews also joined in the fun. With no experience of the game she was able to make it to the final 2 tables. Bruce McAllister also managed to get far into the tournament, but a losing hand of pocket Jacks led the Wildrose MLA to the spectator area to cheer on the remaining players.
Mike Lammers, a local Chestermere resident took the top prize which was accommodation for 6 at a first class resort in Mexico. Prizes which included 2 high end poker tables, stampede season tickets, golf bags and hockey tickets were awarded to the top 18 players. Adding more fun to the tournament was the possibility of knocking out any of the 5 Bounty players. Winning against these opponents who sported a yellow t-shirt netted players a Tim Card worth $100.
Beninger donated the use of the restaurant to host the event and for $25 players could indulge in the delicious buffet. Drinks were also available for purchase throughout the night and the event planners were impressed by the conduct of the poker players.
Since the loss of the penny, the Tim Horton Children’s Foundation has seen an alarming decline in donations to their to their local coin boxes.
Looking for inventive ways to increase funds, Marriott came up with the idea for a charity poker tournament. Due to regulations from Alberta Gaming preventing advertising this event was spread word of mouth, emails and facebook.
Next year’s event will take place about the same time, sometime in the week prior to the annual Camp Day in June. Marriott expects a larger response due to the huge success of the poker party with spots filling up quickly.
A reminder to all that 100% of the drink sales from the June 5 annual Camp Day fundraiser will be committed to the Children’s Foundation. On average this raises 5000 to 7000 dollars at the store level.
For the past 8 years on behalf of Chestermere’s Tim Hortons, the foundation has been able to send 2 local children to the camp in Kananaskis Country. This year, two more kids from the Chestermere community will enjoy 10 days in Alberta’s most amazing outdoors – the local Tim Hortons wish to acknowledge and thank Chestermere Social Services for their continued support and assistance in locating 2 kids in our community that truly deserve to experience one of the seven Tim Horton Camps in Canada and the United States – to have the time of their lives!
