Tim Hortons gave back to several communities across Canada on Nov. 16, including right here at home.

The #WarmWishes campaign brought the Cup of Good Deeds across six Canadian cities to encourage residents to contribute a heart-warming good deed for a friend, neighbour or their community.

The chain's first store opened in Hamilton in 1964, making the campaign’s stop in the city extra special. The Cup of Good Deeds pulled up to a parking lot at Barton St. E and Victoria Ave. N. with a Tim Horton’s coffee truck, functioning as a festive pop-up cafe and offering free cups of their famous coffee.

“Tim Hortons is a home away from home and a place where people can gather. This is just an extension of that through spreading warm wishes and cheer by gestures of good deeds to the community, and just to bring everybody together,” said Simone Clarke, field marketing manager for Tim Hortons. ”Just the ability to share a good deed to a neighbour or a family member is a great opportunity for the community and its a great way to spread warm wishes.”

Once all of the warm wishes were collected, volunteers and staff worked diligently to fulfill as many good deeds as they could throughout the day, no matter the size. For example, one wish was to donate supplies to a local animal shelter, another was to help a family in need by donating a television.

“It’s getting people together and making them feel special, happy and important,” said McMaster student and Tim Hortons brand ambassador, Micheline Vega. “It’s just about giving back to your community.”

Watch the impact that the campaign had in Grimsby last year.

By: Ben Robinson

The news of the Tim Hortons and Burger King merger spread quickly after it was announced two weeks ago. Canadians reacted with both joy and outrage as their beloved Tim Hortons was once again in the hands of an international company, after previously being owned by American company Wendy's from 1995 until 2006.

Since the announcement, media outlets have run wild with speculation about the success of a Tim Hortons’ expansion worldwide and how the merger will affect service domestically. There is no doubt that any time two multinational companies conglomerate it is a story of great economic importance. What is most notable about the coverage of this story, though, is that it has often been reported as a story about Canadian identity rather than the merging of two fast food giants.

For a long time, the lore of Tim Hortons has been integrated into the realm of Canadiana. The company has made a concerted effort to make their products synonymous with what it is to be Canadian in the minds of consumers. Past campaigns have capitalized on "Canadian imagery," including images of parents lovingly watching their child’s six a.m. hockey practice while sipping a double-double, or the more recent image of a husband bringing Tim Hortons to meet his newly immigrated family at the airport.

Is it not still “Canadian” if the onlooking father holds Second Cup while he watches his son run drills? Or if a husband greets his newly arrived family with Starbucks? Early morning hockey practices and welcoming newcomers were "Canadian" long before Tim Hortons was established. Why then have we let a corporation co-opt Canadian identity?

Herein lies the problem: Tim Hortons does not define what it means to be Canadian. It's true that their summer camps and support of minor league sports help many Canadians stay active, but its half-rate coffee and doughnuts are not at the heart of what it means to call this country home. In fact, no product should ever define a person, let alone 35 million people.

Canadian identity becomes corporatized when we associate it with nothing more than which fast-food restaurant our loyalty lies with. And Tim Hortons realizes this. They are taking the pride Canadians have in their country and attaching themselves to it to try and make a profit.

We know this even more intimately in Hamilton, a city that boasts the first ever Tim Hortons store and a newly renamed Tim Hortons field. For decades, the Tiger Cats played out of Ivor Wynne Stadium, named after a local sporting legend, and as with many aging stadiums, the rights to the name were sold when it was time to rebuild (ironically to a company bearing the name of another local sporting legend, except Ivor Wynne isn’t trying to sell you Timbits from the grave.)

Rather than allowing Tim Hortons to define our country, I think it’s important that we define ourselves by the way we as Canadians stand on issues of greater importance than coffee and Timbits. Let's continue to develop great recreational sports programs for our kids so that they can be active and healthy. Let's strive to be a place where newcomers are welcomed, whether or not Tim's coffee is involved. Let's be bigger than a brand.

Tim Hortons has taken another step in asserting itself as a heavyweight in the coffee industry battle against its rivals. Following in the footsteps of other chains like Starbucks and Second Cup, Tim Hortons has introduced a cardboard coffee cup sleeve for hot beverages that will protect customers against burns in lieu of the traditional double-cup method.

As outlined by official policy, the sleeves will accompany beverages that are hot to the touch, such as tea, but can be requested for use with other hot beverages. The recent switch to sleeves satisfies a demand customers have been making for some time.

Alexandra Cygal, a Tim Hortons representative, explains the length delay saying, “We’ve considered [introducing the sleeves] before… but the one we’ve chosen now uses less material and has tested better than ones we’ve tried before.”

The sleeve endured rigorous testing in focus groups before finally making its debut last week.

To create buzz, Tim Hortons is taking unique measures to introduce the new coffee sleeves. In the United Arab Emirates, Tim Hortons has partnered with regional newspaper Gulf News to create the “Headline News Cup Sleeve”. The sleeve will be adorned with news-related tweets from the Gulf News Twitter account and updated hourly to feature important events from across the country. This innovative use of sleeves lends added value to a cup of coffee, but is only available in fourteen stores across the UAE.

The cup sleeves have since made their way to McMaster where they will be protecting students’ hands from their scalding hot drinks. While they won’t play host to news headlines, the sleeves will be a more environmentally conscious option than the conventional double-cup method many have become used to. There are two sides to the coin, as Macleans reports, with one poster on an online discussion thread suggesting that, “A Real Canadian would simply drink their Timmies wearing their hockey gloves.” Without going to that extent, Tim Hortons could encourage customers to bring their own reusable mugs to cut down on waste.

Photo credit: Tomi Milos / Features Editor

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There’s nothing quite like winning Roll Up the Rim. But when you win in the student centre, Terri Marshall makes your win even more memorable.

Marshall has become an overnight celebrity for serenading students with cheers and a “Winner-Style” dance.

A student customer first filmed Teri during her cheer and posted the clip on YouTube. The YouTube video clip is entitled, “Tim Horton’s Employee of the Year?”. When the video first went up, Marshall was unaware of it. Within the first two days the clip received 77, 000 views.

As of Friday morning, the video had close to 600,000 views.

Terri is well known for being a friendly face in the Student Centre.

“Terri is the nicest person. A lot of students don’t know her personally but she goes out of her way to say the sweetest things and exponentially brightens all of our days,“ said YouTube user Whitneh23 in a comment on the video.

When asked what her secret was to being so cheery, she said simply, “it’s just in my nature.”

“I love doing things to shock and catch students' eye.”

Marshall explained how she came up with “Winner Style” this year, after students kept coming up to her asking when Roll Up the Rim season was beginning. Students were so accustomed to her dancing and cheering last year that she came up with “Winner Style” as something new for this year.

The story has grown exponentially, and reached news outlets all over Canada, including CHCH, CBC, Huffington Post Canada, Yahoo Canada and Canoe.ca.

“As a regular Tim’s customer, going every day, Terri is always over-the-top friendly to everyone. Campus is lucky to have her," said Mac student Andrew Terefenko.