August 23rd store adoption report back
The Toronto Kleercut group (Brian, Luke, Garrett, Allyson and Earl) arrived at a downtown grocery store dressed in Kleercut T-shirts on Tuesday August 23rd. Unsuspected by the staff of Dominion and all its consumers, who didn’t know that a dedicated group of Toronto activists were about to adopt the store and let everyone know that Kimberly-Clark is guilty of destroying Canada’s Boreal forest to make Kleenex brand tissue products. We strategically set ourselves up outside the Dominion grocery store at 425 Bloor St. W and started to hand out 100% recycled Kleercut leaflets to consumers entering the store. The start of our grocery store adoption was going to plan.
I decided to enter the Dominion store and speak to the manager (Brian) and ask him to send a fax to Kimberly-Clark. I was brought down to the basement manager’s offices, where I presented an information package to the manager and asked him to send a prepared letter to the #1 forest destroyer Kimberly-Clark. As expected the manager was hesitant, even though he said he supported environmental and social causes in his personal time. So I started to negotiate a deal: “If you sign and fax this letter and let me watch you do this, I will give you a free Kleercut t-shirt.”
Brian the manager thought for a minute and said, “OK, I will do it.” What a success. The mission was accomplished. The fax was sent, the T-shirt was given to Brian, and the adoption continued. While this was going on Allyson, Garrett, Luke and Brian were busy leafleting consumers and people passing by outside the Dominion grocery store.
This great adoption does not end here; a photographer from Global Aware (Allan) arrived and wanted a photo of the Kleercut activists holding the large banner in front of Dominion. Allan took many photos and mentioned that he was going to send our photos to local groups and asked me to write an article about the grocery store adoption.
The news about Kimberly-Clark and Kleenex was spreading quick. A couple hours into the event things were going well and the response from Dominion consumers was great. As our adoption was coming to a close we had a surprise visit from Christy (Greenpeace forest campaigner from the Toronto office) Dave (from Rainforest Action Network) and Leah (from Forest Ethics). They got right into it, holding our banner, handing out leaflets and speaking to the many people who stopped to ask questions.
Kleercut activists did it again, a successful event, the best event of the August push. However, there is still work to be done, Kimberly-Clark continues to destroy Canada’s beautiful Boreal forest and the public still needs to hear this horrible news.
This small group of 7 activists made a huge difference, so think of the impact that could be made if more store adoptions were organized, groups leafleted busy areas across Canada and more. Keep up this great work Kleercut activists, Kimberly-Clark needs to be stopped and they need to hear from all of Canada that the Boreal forest will not be flushed down the toilet.
Cheers
Earl
Check out more photos from this event
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