Reader Cheri writes;
I was thinking today in light of the bad spin over Tim's, and with Remembrance Day and Christmas coming up; it would be nice to be able to buy a soldier a cup of coffee.Following is the response I recieved from Tim's. There's a link to Canadian Forces Personell Support and also Operation Santa Claus. They will accept coupons at the Kandahar location. I plan to take a few booklets with me to the Edmonton rally on Friday in hopes that they might have something set up. As a note of interest; recently there was a Sobey's collecting Kraft Dinner
for the troops.p.s. I'm very impressed that Tim's replied so quickly (within 3 hrs).
We are honoured that the Canadian troops requested a Tim Hortons in Kandahar. All of the troops on the base will now be able to enjoy Tim Hortons coffee, Iced Cappuccino, baked goods and more. We are proud to provide them with a little taste of home'. At this time, we are not set up to coordinate donations of coffee/money for our location in Afghanistan. The Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency (CFPSA) is not set up to take such donations either. They do take on-line donations for Operation Santa Claus - which sends packages at Xmas to troops stationed overseas.
Information can be found at : http://www.cfpsa.com/en/psp/donations/index.asp. Tim Hortons, corporately donates coffee to this program every year.
Please note, Tim Hortons gift certificates are accepted at the location in Afghanistan.
Once again, thank you for contacting us.
Regards,
The TDL Group Corp.
Siobhan
Operations Services Representative
That doesn't sound too hard!
As the e-mail mentions, TH's is taking gift cert's from Canada and according the the RCD website (dragoons.ca) also from the US. If you have a friend or relative serving in peacekeeping op's overseas, Canada Post is offering free parcel service to peacekeepers. This offer ends on Jan 15, 2007. This helps out with the 'satellite' family & friends that don't have access to the Military Family Resources Centres (aka MFRC) However it should also be noted that if you want the parcel to arrive in KAF by Christmas it needs to be in Belleville by Nov 15 for Christmas delivery.
If there's a way to convince Afgans to join the fight for freedom and democracy, it's to give them a taste.
Once they get a bite from a triple chocolate muffin there'd be no going back. The Kandahar Timmie's may never close.
Martin, the Third World receivers of freedom can hardly afford the necessities of life, let alone a triple chocolate muffin. Your comment is reminiscent of Marie Antoinette's cake remark.
Adrian,
If you've got a Timmies in the neighbourhood, eventually pretty much everyone who lives nearby will get a taste.
I don't believe in permanent geographic hopelessness. You can have that static defeatist mindset if you want but I don't buy it. I think our troops have an important purpose in Afganistan and in some small degree, Timmie will play a role.
If freedom and democracy survives in Afganistan, a free market economy and a growing middle class will be immediate benefits.
Know of many third world democracies?
So what if someone doesn't personally know any of our soldiers in Afghanistan but would like to send off some Tim's coupons as a Christmas present....does anyone have an address for someone over there who could distribute them amongst the troops?
Duh. Never mind. I just found it. It is on the "Write a Soldier" link here on SDA.
Chemist: not as simple as it seems. Unless you are family you can't include anything in the letter. I've written to the military to see what would be involved with sending the GCs.
Another option may be to find out if there's anyone willing to distribute the gc's for you. One example may be through the padre's. Possibly contacting one of the MFRC's wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe them or the Married to the forces site would be able to point you in the right direction.