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To most parents, Target’s new shopping cart may look like any other typical cart, but to parents of children with disabilities, it’s a game-changer.
Drew Ann Long, a mother of three from Alabama, designed the cart after realizing that her daughter Caroline, who has special needs, would soon outgrow the traditional shopping cart. The cart, designed specifically for children and adults with disabilities, includes a large, easy-to-access seat with straps positioned in the front. Caroline's Cart, as it came to be called, has made it so parents of kids with disabilities no longer have to push around both a wheelchair and a shopping cart when shopping - a struggle they know all too well.
When a Target employee, who has also has a child with special needs, heard of the idea, he brought it to the attention of the store’s operations team. Now, Target plans to introduce Caroline’s Carts to almost all of its retail stores in the U.S. by March 15, 2016.
As Caroline’s Cart proliferates to more stores, supermarkets, and malls, parents of special needs kids are overjoyed. One parent wrote Target on Facebook, “I can't express enough how happy my wife was to see this at our local Target today….This simple cart literally will change how we can shop, not having to worry as to how we are going to get [our daughter] into a store. Every retailer in the country should follow suit!”
In addition to Target, other retailers, such as Starbucks, are beginning to take into account the importance of inclusion and are acting accordingly. Hopefully Caroline’s Carts, and similar disability-friendly services and products, will soon be a commonplace feature of grocery stores, shops, and public spaces.
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