Friendly the Spud and friends travel P.E.I. promoting inclusiveness

Darlene Lund is walking across P.E.I. to promote friendliness.

Lund is trying to raise enough money to buy friendship benches for some Island schools and she is hard to miss. She walks down the street in overalls, rubber boots and oven mitts alongside the mascot she created.

Lund came up with Friendly the Spud while working in the mental health field.

"I noticed that a lot of people didn't have a friend to actually talk to about what was going on in their life."

So being from P.E.I. Lund said she created a "potato character."

"I named the character Friendly."

Now, she is traveling from tip to tip of the province with Friendly to promote inclusiveness and supporting those with unique differences.

She is also delivering a message that it is okay to ask for help.

Lund is also carrying a rubber boot people can toss donations into to help with the initiative of spreading friendliness and adding friendship benches to public schools.

"We are collecting money for Friendly SPUD benches at schools. So, people may have heard of buddy benches."

People who are lonely sit on the bench and maybe someone will come along and talk with them and create a friendship, Lund said.

"SPUD is an acronym for supporting people's unique differences."

So far Lund has managed to raise $400, she said.

'Different in all kinds of different ways'

Lund took ten days off from her work as a social worker to walk across the province with four friends. They started in North Cape May 31.

"We stopped at Tignish school and Deblois school and Lennox Island."

They will continue their walk to promote friendliness until June 9 and Lund says anyone who wants to chip in can log their kilometres on Friendly the Spud's website.

"I talk about Friendly and the book that I wrote. So, in the book I tell you why Friendly wears oven mitts."

That is why she wears the outfit on her walk, she said.

"I talk to them about that, that is is okay to be different. Sometimes we wear different prosthetics. Different people are different in all kinds of different ways and to be accepting of that."

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