Is Subway Refusing to Serve homeschoolers?
Is Subway Refusing to Serve homeschoolers?
I’ve heard from various comments left on this blog that Subway Restaurants is explicitly excluding homeschoolers from a writing contest.
From the Official Rules:
2. ELIGIBILITY. Contest is open only to legal residents of the United States who are currently over the age of 18 and have children who attend elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6. No home schools will be accepted. Read more…
At first I thought this must be a hoax. I looked into this and it seems to be a legitimate Subway Franchisee Advertising Trust Fund website. I’ve heard of contests before that inadvertently exclude homeschoolers but they don’t often specifically say “No Homeschoolers.”
I also noticed WorldnetDaily picked up on this story. (Not that they are the seal of truth or anything.)
What are those Franchisees thinking?
“Snubway Doesn’t Want Homeschoolers”
Still boycott their products/stores? BUT …
I wonder what would happen if HEAPS of homeschoolers, under the ‘school’ of their local support group, submitted entries anyway.
hehe!
PS: Read this letter from Scholastic : http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29479&highlight=subway
I’m not bothered by this. The first prize is athletic equipment meant to go to a school. Since the point is to get athletic equipment into schools I’m not sure why homeschoolers would expect to be included.
Choosing to homeschool means we have to accept that there will be some things, by virtue of being homeschooled, that we can’t participate in. No big deal.
Dawn, there have been many other contest and programs with similar prizes that do include homeschoolers. General Mills’ Box Tops for Education is used by our homeschool group to obtain gym equipment for the facility we meet in. Subway simply needed to ask for the name of the school, church or public facility that will be given the sports equipment prize.
Some homeschooled kids would simply like to see their work eligible to be in the magazine, despite other prizes.
I’m not bothered either. I can see how Subway may see some difficulty in awarding $5000 worth of sports equipment to a homeschooler. Some of us are not part of a homeschool group or church. I have no idea what I would do with $5000 worth of sports equipment. I’m sure I could find a worthy place to donate it, but I don’t blame Subway for not wanting to deal with the complication of an unaffiliated homeschooler.
-Amy
I am not proposing a boycott of Subway nor do I hate them for doing this. I just find it un-diplomatic and insensitive. Yes, I understand the possible issues with awarding this prize to an individual. If they just thought this through, they could have come up with an obvious solution and avoided the bad publicity and exclusion. It’s not about prizes.
Businesses are supposed to cater to their customer base, and creating a contest as they did seems to me to be a little short-sighted, and it doesn’t look to me like anyone even proofread the ad, but as Dawn pointed out, the prizes are more conducive to benefit a traditional school, and there are going to be things that exclude HSers. Fact of life. But gary is right- they could have been inclusive if they had taken the time to think this one through. 6 of one, half-dozen of the other.
I can understand boycotting Subway if they were doing something immoral or unethical, but IMO boycotting over something like this smacks of fit-pitching.