How About Helping The Real New Orleans?

[Radiobarry]

I put this in the DLR thread because of the new New Orleans Square stuff going on. MODS - feel free to move it elsewhere if need be.

This is something that I've been thinking of for a while, but especially with Disney's new things going on in NOS...my favorite part of the park, by the way...
I'd like to see Disneyland, and guests, have the chance to participate in the ongoing relief efforts in the REAL New Orleans...I'm not sure how it might look.

How about donations for pics with the Pirates on the Columbia or whatever? Or specially adorned donation jars around the BB, Cafe and FM entrances?

And Disney matches the amount that guests contribute.

Is it a good idea? The whole thing, not just those examples -

Seems like it would be good PR all the way around, and a way for folks to help one America's great cities.

Has this been discussed before?

--Barry

[Chris Lang]

I think it's a wonderful idea, but I can see why Disney has not done this. Imagine the requests that would come pouring in for other charities and organizations ...

It's a Small World: Donations for World Hunger (Feed the World's children!)
Main Street Flagpole: Donations for U.S. Veterans
Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln (upon its return): Civil War Memorial Donations
Nemo's Submarine Voyage: Donations for preserving the corral reefs.

Tom Sawyer Island: Help Fight Illiteracy: Reading Rainbow Donations

I know this sounds a bit extreme, but it's potentially a serious slippery slope if they get into allowing charities to set up shop on Disney property, and once they do it once, it sets a precedent.

The Disney Organization gives and donates to many charities (including Katrina relief). By supporting Disney (visiting the parks) you are indirectly helping these charities.

If I want to personally donate to these charities, I will do so on my own and when I'm not enjoying my vacation at a place where I'm supposed to be able to 'escape from real life'.

[TP2000]

Sign above the front door at Disneyland:

Here you leave the world of today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy.

While the thought of setting up charity facilities to help aid an ongoing tragedy is nice, I don't feel it has a place inside Disneyland.

The Walt Disney Company in general, and Disneyland in particular, already does so much more than the average company to help those less fortunate or in need. (Have you seen the MILLIONS of dollars Disneyland CM's alone have donated to the Anaheim Boys & Girls Club just since the 50th started? They are helping disadvantage children living in drug motels around the Park have safer environments to hang out in after school, and providing help with school work and getting them involved in extra-curricular music, fine arts and sports programs. Not to mention all the hard labor and material donations so many CM's have made to physically upgrade and rehab the Boys & Girls Club facilities in Anaheim. It's much more than just writing big fat checks, as these CM's are up there on ladders sweating it out to make these facilities better for the kids. Bravo Disneyland CM's!)

Bringing Disney's already generous sense of charity into the park in plain view, and encouraging it's guests to donate, doesn't seem to be the appropriate tone for Disneyland in my opinion.

[lazyboy97O]

I must agree is is a great idea, but that it sits atop a slippery slope. It really is a shame too.

[RobotMirror]

I couldn't disagree more with people that feel it has "no place" in the park. Just as the wishing well coins are donated to charity (as it states several places in the park), a voluntary donation within New Orleans Square, to aid and assist in New Orleans recovery efforts, would be a good move on Disney's part, good PR, and would remind guests that there are those that can't even begin to dream about going to a theme park yet.

A little unselfishness goes a long way.

[Micoofy Duck]

Instead of wasting time- Yes I said wasting time writing about it here, get with a "real" new orleans group and get the idea implanted in the right people's mind who have the connections to set up a meeting to discuss this possibility. If the execs wish to do something outside of the park, then so be it but at least you got something started instead of wishing for someone else to do something about it!

[PragmaticIdealist]

Since New Orleans Square is an imagining of the port city as she existed more than a century or two ago, the presence of references to the hurricane would undermine the believability of that fiction.

It would make more sense for places like the Jazz Kitchen and the House of Blues to organize charitable relief.

[mrcoaster]

Great idea, but it's just not going to happen. Not inside the park. It's definitely a slippery slope. Encouraging folks to donate outside of the park through whatever means Disney prefers is far more likely.

[A Disney Dreamer]

I wouldn't give to a charity inside the park even if Disney was behind it.


Reason is: I HAVE NO MONEY LEFT!!

[RobotMirror]

Originally Posted by PragmaticIdealist

...the presence of references to the hurricane would undermine the believability of that fiction....

No one asked for the hurricane to be mentioned specifically, only the city of New Orleans.

So it is your position, Pragmatic, then, that the signage behind Minnie's house in Toontown, or in front of the castle, at Snow White's wishing well, that indicate that contributions made by guests are donated to children's charities, "undermine the believability of that fiction", in your words?

[PragmaticIdealist]

Originally Posted by Frogberto

No one asked for the hurricane to be mentioned specifically, only the city of New Orleans.

So it is your position, Pragmatic, then, that the signage behind Minnie's house in Toontown, or in front of the castle, at Snow White's wishing well, that indicate that contributions made by guests are donated to children's charities, "undermine the believability of that fiction", in your words?

Not at all... A 2005 hurricane in a New Orleans of the 18th and 19th Centuries does, though.

[RobotMirror]

So does the presence of 2006 US Currency at the bottom of the wells "undermine the believability of the fiction" of their location, to you?

[lazyboy97O]

I believe suspension of disbelief would work in this case.

[Max Fischer]

I am all for helping the people of New Orleans, but I don't understand rebuilding when the same issues are at play with the water tables, etc. My understanding is that if you rebuild, the same thing will likely happen again.

Also, I don't know about the issue of having donations in the resort take away from thinking you're in a magical place. When I see signs that say, "Sponsored by Dole" or Ortega, or Mission, etc. I kind of remember that I'm in a commercial place.

[PragmaticIdealist]

Originally Posted by Frogberto

So does the presence of 2006 US Currency at the bottom of the wells "undermine the believability of the fiction" of their location, to you?

If you can spot the dates on the coinage, then good for you.

The answer to the question, though, depends on whether or not the guests from the U.S. in 2006 introduced that element into the fiction. Most likely, the currency found in the bottom of the wells was deposited by guests to The Magic Kingdom and not by Disneylanders, themselves, so the internal logic of the fiction is in no way diminished by the presence of the money.

To get even more technical, Mickey's Toontown and Fantasyland have settings in even more nebulous time periods than those of Frontierland. And, Disneyland is a kingdom unto itself, so the official currency would be the Disney Dollar.