In an effort to celebrate seasonal workers and mend ties between the French Canadians who come to the region for fruit picking work and locals, Oliver Parks and Recreation is holding its second annual Farm Workers’ Picnic.
This year’s picnic, due to its proximity to Saint-Jean Baptiste Day, will be held in celebration of Quebec’s holiday. That’s also intended to help bridge the gap between Oliver residents and Quebecois farm workers.
“There has been, I think, some tensions in the community over the past while,” said organizer Carol Sheridan. “There’s a lot of people that come into town in a short amount of time, they congregate down in Lion’s Park, because that’s really the only meeting place with shade and open area that they can come together and reunite with people from previous seasons.”
Those congregations can bring over 150 people to the park at times, according to Sheridan, who says that can cause some nervousness around town.
“That has people that aren’t from here that maybe dress differently and look differently and talk differently,” Sheridan said. “There was some tensions in the community, and so we tried to turn that around and make it a positive, and look at a way to welcome people coming into the community, and invite Oliver residents to come down and actually meet people.”
Oliver will be holding Canada 150 celebrations for the country’s sesquicentennial, but Sheridan said it felt like a good time to also pull the Saint-Jean Baptiste Day celebrations out of the periphery.
“There were three days for Celebrate Canada grants. One was Saint-Jean Baptiste Day, one was Aboriginal Day and one was Canada Day,” she said.
“We’re hopefully going to support everyone of them moving forward, but this year we really chose to focus on Saint-Jean Baptiste Day, just due to the significant number of French Canadians who spend the summer here.”
Sheridan acknowledged that there is also a significant number of Hispanic migrant workers who also come to the region seasonally, noting that while the event is timed with Saint-Jean Baptiste Day, the event is to celebrate all of the seasonal workers.
Entering its second year, Sheridan says last year’s picnic brought more people than expected, noting that she feels there was a noticeable effect on migrant workers’ attitudes toward the parks.
“They honestly were really touched, I think, that the community wanted to throw an event for them, and I think it went a long way,” she said. “The reciprocal respect that we saw in the park for the rest of the summer — there were still problems, there will always be problems when you have that many people congregating in an area, but I would say the use of the park was more appropriate than it had been in past years.”
This year, however, she says she’d like to see more families and local residents in general going to the event to meet some of the farm workers for themselves.
“It’s really fun, there’s a lot of music and dancing, and so that’s kind of our goal this year, is to just change the focus of the event to be a community event, and not just for the workers,” she said.
“I think that where we’re going to see the change in the perceptions or relationships from Oliver residents is actually coming down and meeting people and getting to know that these are kids. They could be their kids, they’re just travelling, they’re working.”
The event will have food, music and crafts, among other things, and will be held free of cover in Lion’s Park on June 23 from 4-7 p.m.