Student CreateAthon Participants Present Ideas to Nonprofits

As a culmination of their seminar, CreateAthon: Working with Nonprofits, and their experience participating in a CreateAthon on Campus, five teams of Collegiate School seniors this morning presented their work to help area organizations with their marketing campaigns. (A sixth group will present at a later date.)
In March, Collegiate became the first high school to participate in a CreateAthon, a national nonprofit pro bono marketing marathon that “harnesses skills-based superpowers for social good.” Collegiate partnered locally with CreateAthon@VCU, a volunteer program that gives students the opportunity to use their creative talents to help fulfill the marketing needs of nonprofits in the Richmond community.  

Allen Chamberlain, Head Librarian of the Upper School Library, and Jere Williams, Upper School art teacher, co-teachers of the seminar, had been in touch with Collegiate alumna Peyton Rowe ʼ86, who serves as Executive Director of CreateAthon as well as an associate professor in advertising at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“Off and on we've chatted about the possibility of doing something like this at Collegiate,” Ms. Chamberlain said. “It seemed like a great time for Jere and me to approach her with the idea.”

Students worked with six local nonprofits that serve a broad range of populations in the community: Reach Out for Life, Partnership for Families, Miracles in Motion, Tech for Troops, Chesterfield Innovative Academy for Girls and Puppets Off Broad Street.

Today in the Sandbox in the Sharp Academic Commons, students presented to their clients deliverables that ranged from donor plans to logos to websites to videos.

Cristina Muncy and Kimberly Jeans created a logo for the CIA for Girls featuring a blue sphere and three gold monarch butterflies with the tagline “Where curious minds take flight.” The blue and gold represented the school’s colors, the sphere the world and the butterflies the students.

“We wanted to create a unique idea for CIA for Girls,” Cristina said. “It’s such a small school and it doesn’t have the resources for this type of marketing. We were so happy and excited to help them with this process.”

Tana Mardian, Alex DiNardo and Ginx Williams worked with Tech for Troops, which provides veterans in need with technology and job skills. The trio produced a logo and tag line for a donor campaign, “Operation Redeployment: Rebooting Veterans” as well as a donor thank you card featuring photos of veterans who have benefited from the organization and a list of potential corporate donors.

After the students’ presentation, Mark Casper, the executive director of Tech for Troops, expressed his pleasure with the results.

“They knocked it out of the park,” he said.
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