Toronto Metropolitan University's Independent Student Newspaper Since 1967

All News

Ryerson student finds tuition in her Tim’s cup

By Aleysha Haniff

Associate News Editor

At best, Khalin Elliott was hoping for a free snack when she rolled up the rim last Wednesday.

“I started rolling it up and I see ‘win’ and the first thing that pops in my head is ‘Oh sweet, I’ve won a muffin or a coffee. I can get breakfast tomorrow morning,'” she said.

But instead of free pastry, the first-year new media student found a tiny dollar sign followed by a big number under the rim of her medium hot chocolate – $10,000 courtesy of Tim Hortons Roll Up The Tim Contest.

Elliott and her friends always take a break during their three-hour visual studies class. As usual, they grabbed drinks at the Tim Hortons between Kerr Hall West and the Rogers Communications Centre and sat down on the red bench just across the hall to relax and roll up their rims.

Fifteen minutes later, Elliott had a cup worth $10,000 and a pair of jumping, excited friends.

Elliott said she never wins anything. “I had to get them to read it over to make sure I wasn’t going crazy.”

Despite jokes and sarcastic comments flying around campus, Elliott’s friends are thrilled she won – even though if they had lined up in a different order, one of them would have taken the prize. All three ordered medium hot chocolates that morning.

“I’m so glad Khalin won the money because she’s not spending it on shoes, you know?” said Bryan Lee, a first-year new media student who was with Elliott when she won.

Elliott, who prefers tea or hot chocolate to coffee, usually makes a Timmie’s run every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning. She buys a medium or a large beverage, depending on her mood.

The oldest of four girls, she relied on OSAP and a competitive entrance scholarship to cover her tuition and residence fees this year.

“There’s six of us so we go through struggles and stuff like that. We’re kind of in the middle in a way, like most big families are, so getting this is definitely going to help with school,” Elliott said.

She plans to spend her money on a new computer. Her MacBook runs slowly, and she needs something to handle advanced graphics work.

“Everything’s computer based in our classes,” she explained.

The leftover cash will pay her tuition for second year.

Even the food service employees were pumped to learn Elliott had won such a big prize at their tiny campus Tim Hortons. “It was like oh, gosh – I had it in my hand,” said Lucy Roque, who gave Elliott the winning cup.

She said more customers have been getting their coffee fix at Tim’s since Elliott’s win, hoping to get lucky.

And last Friday, someone stopped by to tell them they had won a $100 Tim Card from that location.

“That saying, have a nice day- it really, really worked for her. That’s what we keep saying,” said Roque.

 

Leave a Reply