Honda Indy Toronto Interns with James Vance at Camp Day

A Day in the Life of a Honda Indy Toronto Intern: Tim Horton's Camp Day

This past Wednesday was Tim Horton's Camp Day, where every coffee ordered helps to send kids from low income families to a Tim Horton's camp.

Here at the Honda Indy Toronto, we believe that Camp Day is a great cause, and we love giving back to our community, so we teamed up with NASCAR Pinty's Series driver James Vance in order to try and help encourage as many people as we could to get involved.

The day for me started with a wonderful 6:00 AM wake-up, and after navigating the TTC, I managed to make my way into North York, where one of our other interns, Nick, picked me up to head to the Tim Horton's on 2075 Sheppard Avenue East. It was here that we met James, and got the day started. James had his actual race car with him, which certainly drew quite a bit of attention from those that were going through the drive-thru and passing by on the road. The lucky customers that were relaxing inside and enjoying their orders were able to come out and have a look at the car, and even some of those passing through the drive-thru came and parked once they had their coffees in order to check out the car, and pose with James for a picture. Nick, being the creative member of the group had our Honda Pilot looking like a pop-up shop to support all things Honda Indy Toronto and Camp Day. Even though the sun didn't come out until after we left, we made the most of the day, and were thankful to go inside and interact with the customers to tell them more about the festival, and encourage them to further support Camp Day.

The Tim Horton's staff were kind enough to let us come behind the counter, where James was able to surprise some customers with tickets to Saturday at the Honda Indy Toronto, where he will be racing. The happiness and gratitude that these customers showed to us and James was something we will always be able to look back on proudly, knowing that we did something good for all of these individuals who were supporting Camp Day, which is already a fantastic initiative. Many of the fans were blown away with the car, and the look of excitement on their faces when they realized that James was the driver, was incredible.

We also were fortunate enough to be able to take our Honda Pilot through the drive-thru with James for a coffee run, where we did a quick little Q&A so that we could learn a bit more about what goes in to being a professional driver while also getting to know him a bit better outside of racing. The Q&A was a lot of fun, and we had some laughs, especially when we got to re-watch it and see how nervous Nick got when it was his turn to order a coffee. I can't say enough about great things about how wonderful the staff at this location, including Rose, who has been working there for 25 years. She spent the day getting all of the customers excited about us being there, and brought a number of families out to see the car and to meet James. The Camp Day festivities wrapped up for us around lunch time, but the fun for us interns did not end there, as we headed on down to the Ontario Science Centre. That, however, sounds like a story for another Day In the Life article, so stay tuned..