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Marketing For The Real World Posted 2008-04-26
Assignment Gives Class Experience, Chance To Help
By Heather Bowser
HARRISONBURG - In less than a semester, a crew of 36 James Madison University marketing students invented six fundraising campaigns and raised more than $13,000 for local and national charities.
Over the last few months, the students in Mert Tokman's New Product Development class organized charitable events to promote causes and raise donations.
It was their assignment.
To get the cash, they hosted speakers, took donations and organized a party, dog show and a basketball tournament. They helped orphans in Haiti, autistic and physically deformed children, and dogs at the SPCA, according to their professor.
"It feels good to finally give back to the local community," said senior Kevin Dupuis, a team captain of the Autism Speaks Foundation group.
The class is designed to teach students how to create a new product, said Tokman, an assistant professor of marketing.
To put their skills to the test, he had the class develop a charity event in less than four months. The idea, he said, was to give the students real-life experience as well as doing some good.
"A lot of projects we do in classes, they're hypothetical. They're not real," said Mary Hutt, 22, of Fredericksburg. "It was great to make something real and implement our ideas."
Hutt worked with Operation Smile, a group that raises money to perform constructive surgery on children with deformed faces. She and her group collected stuffed animals for children and used a coin drive, which earned $700.
Some groups went all out.
Geoff Robinson-Schacht, 22, of Lebanon, N.J., joined a group to raise awareness and funds for the orphans in Haiti.
Robinson-Schacht went to Haiti for a week in March. There, he took pictures of his experience and the group used the pictures in several presentations, where a donation was collected. The group raised almost $2,000 and collected several bags of clothing.
Kyle Duffy, 22, of Richfield, Conn., and his group worked with the JMU chapter of Best Buddies International, a mentoring group for the mentally handicapped.
The group set up donation stands around campus and solicited local businesses for money to fund the 90-member organization. Although his group raised $450, he said, the biggest contribution they made was getting to interact with the club's clientele.
"We're not just learning curriculum," said Natalie Bartgis, 24, of Roanoke. "We're learning to be efficient and effective. You can't just get that from just reading a book."