At first glance, it might look like a student art project but on closer inspection it’s so much more.
On Saturday, March 4, Robinson’s Your Independent Grocer invited shoppers to add an outline of their hands to a picnic table representing Canada’s diversity for the country’s sesquicentennial. It’s part of the Loblaws #eattogether campaign which encourages neighbours to sit at each others’ tables and get to know one another.
“It’s celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday and that we’re a very diverse country and that everybody is welcome at our dinner table – we’re a food industry so we tend to look at the foodie part of it,” says Maggie Fines, Store Manager at Robinson’s. “Each store was given a picnic table to paint in what we think eating together in Canada means. We took a look at it and what we thought was everyone joining hands at the dinner table, no electronic devices.”
Staff painted the traced hands different colours to represent different ages and different backgrounds.
“It’s about encouraging people to share a table with our fellow neighbor – who cares what your ethnic background is, your economic status, your education – we are all equal when it comes to eating at the same table and having good conversations and good food,” said Rittenhouse.
The store will enter the picnic table in a Loblaws contest – if it wins it will head to Ottawa for Canada 150 celebrations.
Shoppers can win, too. A three-night VIP trip to Ottawa with seven friends for Canada Day weekend to celebrate Canada 150 is up for grabs. For more information and contest rules click here. Contest closes April 30th, 2017.
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Although I admit to never having seen the picnic table in person, I would challenge the claim that it is “inclusive”. Exactly where can a wheelchair-user access the table?