I was really disappointed the other day when I read that my
hometown had sold out to corporate sponsorship.
Town council accepted a $100,000 “donation” from Spinrite, the major
yarn and craft textile manufacturer that has its factory and head office there,
to the new municipal day care centre. In
return, council agreed to include Spinrite in the name of the new facility.
There’s nothing wrong with sponsorship and corporate
donations. In fact, more corporations
should be doing this. Spinrite probably
could have donated more than $100,000 if it really wanted to. What I don’t like is this shameless selling
of the names of public facilities to whoever comes along with the biggest
cheque. Stingy is the best word I can
find to describe the budgetary and decision making habits of the council in my
hometown. Its members have always seemed
to give the impression that ones highest calling in life is to live as cheaply
as possible. $100,000 is a pretty cheap
carrot for a company to dangle before the eyes of the perpetually frugal.
It’s true, Spinrite is one of the biggest employers in
town. Many of the employees likely make
use of the public day care centre.
However, in a world where the lives of children are commercialized from
the moment they’re born, whether it be through the manufacturers of disposable
diapers and baby bottles to every mass market toy baring the evidence of Disney,
do we really need the logo of a company on a place that should be set aside for
children to be cared for, for them to play, and for their creativity to be
encouraged?
There’s a labour component to my complaint too. It’s mostly rooted in history. Spinrite was for years owned and operated by
one of the wealthiest families in town.
This really created an “us and them” social structure. A structure like this is much more tolerable
in a large city, but in a small town in the prairie-like farm country, it’s a
lot more noticeable. Although the
company is now a publicly-traded one, it still looks to me like the
paternalistic old-money class throwing crumbs at those less privileged. The factory was also known for its hot and
dangerous working conditions and an extreme dislike for even the slightest talk
about union organization. Having a
corporate name on a public facility reminds me too much of the old days of
company towns where workers were stuck living in a place owned by their
employer.
The local press really dropped the ball on this story. Nobody asked the hard questions about
corporate sponsorship, selling the name of a public facility to whoever showed
up with a fat cheque, and is it socially responsible to have a place for the
community’s children under the influence of corporate branding?
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