LINDSEY BOERMA
Living Assistant
Pepperdine students Allison Dees, Tyler Vernon, Anthony Marino, Dennis McCoy and Derek Zobrist are senior business majors who are utilizing their service capstone class to benefit a local organization as well as the community as a whole.
Though they were able to choose from many different organizations, they chose to develop a marketing campaign for the Discovery Shop, a high-end thrift store in Santa Monica with all proceeds going to benefit the American Cancer Society.
“We chose to work with the Discovery Shop because we felt that it was the most tangible and that we could give them something that they could actually use,” Dees said.
“Also, it’s cool because three of us are from Santa Monica, so we get to work in our own little community.”
The students named their organization Pepp Serve, and their main goal is to increase awareness of the shop after its recent move from Brentwood to Santa Monica. Like the people they are trying to reach, the members of the group were previously unaware of the 14 Discovery Shops sprinkled throughout Southern California and their benefits to society.
“We didn’t even know about [the shops],” Vernon said. “Everything about them makes them truly interesting shops, like even the way they’re run, but not many people know about them, and that’s what we’re trying to fix.”
The stores can be described as a “bargain hunter’s dream,” with high-quality, nearly new donated items from brands such as Armani, Chanel and Prada marked down 40 to 70 percent below the original retail price.
In addition to selling apparel, they also offer home furnishings and décor.
The stores function to ensure the maximum amount of proceeds to the American Cancer Society possible, they are running on extremely low marketing budgets.
Thus, particularly true for the recently relocated Santa Monica shop, the most essential need for the stores is to be recognized by the public.
The members of “Pepp Serve” are working on doing just that.
“Most donors for the shop came from the area in Brentwood, so right now our main plan is to attract volunteers for them,” Dees said.
“The stores are completely dependent on community support, so our job is to design a plan to increase that within all of them in the L.A. area.”
One of the group’s concepts for the volunteer marketing campaign is to create an internship in which students can volunteer at the store for college credit.
“It would be a regional internship for all over the L.A. area, and it could be tailored to different interests and major requirements,” Dees said.
“It would especially be great for business or PR majors, because there’s so much advertising that needs to be done.”
However, students are also encouraged to volunteer on their own time.
“If we can increase volunteerism, then other things like donations and more customers will derive from that,” Dees said.
“Students are especially encouraged to volunteer, because it’s a great way to help out and to just get your ideas out there.”
Vernon agreed that the opportunities available through the Discovery Shops can not only work to benefit the community, but also the volunteers that help with them.
“This is an opportunity to volunteer for something that can immediately impact a cause,” he said.
“It’s just a great opportunity to get interact with something outside the Pepperdine bubble and give back to the community.
“I just think it’s cool that Pepperdine offers a class to actually do something meaningful instead of just write a paper. This is not only something that the community can use, but it’s also a way for us to use what we’ve learned here.”
Further promoting the cause of Pepp Serve and the Discovery Shops is the affiliated American Cancer Society, which all proceeds directly go toward.
“Before working on this project, I didn’t have a strong relationship with the American Cancer Society, but as college students, I think we all know someone who has been affected by cancer, and that just adds to the meaning of the cause,” Dees said.
The Discovery Shop in Santa Monica is located at 1920 Wilshire Boulevard.
04-05-2007