Safeway says no—again

Safeway on Mangrove Avenue won’t allow school for kids with disabilities to sell raffle tickets in front of the store

This article was published on 05.10.12

Safeway at it again
Local Safeway stores recently made news when anti-GMO-petition signature gatherers reported confrontations with store managers telling them to leave. The manager of the Safeway on East Avenue “was very rude” to local anti-GMO leader Pamm Larry “and told her if she were seen anywhere near the store he would call the police” (head to www.newsreview.com/chico/safeway-says-no/content?oid=5701963 to read the whole story).

Well, I had a similar experience this past Friday morning at the Safeway on Mangrove Avenue, where I, as a parent aide, was helping students and teachers from Rose Scott Open-Structured School—a small private, nonprofit school with a significant number of autistic, Asperger’s syndrome and ADHD students—sell raffle tickets as part of its fourth annual year-end fundraiser. Rose Scott School has had permission—given to school director Cindy Carlson by store manager Art Campion—to sell tickets in front of this particular store for the past four years. In fact, Carlson had just gotten the thumbs up from Campion to sell tickets at the Mangrove Safeway the Friday prior to last Friday’s incident, in which a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair in a Safeway uniform identified herself as the assistant manager and told us sternly a number of times we had to leave the premises or we would be photographed and the photos would “be sent to legal.” When we pointed out that Campion had given us permission to be there, she said that he was out of town and reiterated rudely that we needed to leave or we would be photographed (which made some of the students nervous: “I don’t want my picture taken!” said more than one of them). Veterans, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, she added, were allowed to solicit near Safeway’s doors. But not us, a school for developmentally disabled students. Luckily, the owner of Woman Beautiful let us stand in front of her shop and raise much-needed money.

Social justice, Safeway?

Jeanne Ertle at the Occupy Chico rally held on May 1—International Workers’ Day, a national holiday in more than 80 countries—at City Plaza. Similar protest rallies were held nationwide. Ertle held the same sign at earlier Occupy events in Chicago and Washington, D.C. “I believe this is the underlying issue that we’re dealing with,” said Ertle of 99-percent/1-percent income inequality, and its relationship to social justice (and other) problems the United States faces.
christine g.k. lapado

“Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.” – Matthew Fox

Donate your time
Luisa Garza, lead grounds worker in the Grounds Department over at Chico State’s University Housing and Food Service (UHFS), sent me an email recently saying that volunteers are needed for UHFS’ upcoming Diversion Excursion on May 17 and 18.

In its 12th year, the Diversion Excursion “is designed to capture as many goods as we can that [dormitory] residents are not taking with them when they move out of the halls,” wrote Garza. “It was started by an idea from a student who saw a lot of good items going into the Dumpster.”

Donation-collection tables manned by volunteers are located on campus and at University Village. Donations are sorted through and delivered to local charities—such as Esplanade House and Computers for Classrooms—or loaded into thrift-store vehicles for delivery. Square Deal Mattress Factory recycles all foam egg-crate-style bed pads donated.

“The program always runs the last two days of the spring semester with early move-out bins in each [residence hall] lobby for several days preceding the event,” Garza said.

Volunteers can sign up for a two-hour-minimum shift by calling A.S. Sustainability’s front desk at 898-5033.