For the third consecutive year, a group of students from the School of Communication is taking part in PhilADthropy.
The program gives students real-life experience while doing advertising and creative service work for nonprofit local agencies – all for free.
The event – a sleepless, “25-hour Ad-A-Thon” — will take place Friday and Saturday. The students will break into teams in an effort to voice the cause of their nonprofit “clients,” brainstorming and working arduously to create advertising products such as print advertising, TV, radio scripts, brochures and newsletters. Their efforts will be later presented to the clients.
The event will take place around the School of Communication and is overseen by advertising professors Meryl Blau and Alyce Lancaster. Most students who participate in PhilADthropy are advertising and public relations majors. Many of them also belong to the school-based group such as the AdGroup and PRADUM.
“Ultimately, our goal is to help them increase awareness of their organization within their target audience and help them get more support from the community,” participant Marjorie Figueroa said.
One of the organizations that received help last year was Food for the Poor, and the staff said they were grateful for the opportunity and the awareness the PhilADthropy program brought to their organization.
“Participating in last year’s UM PhilADthropy day allowed Food for the Poor staff members the opportunity to engage college students in the preparation of materials to be distributed to campuses nationwide,” executive director Angel Aloma said. “The student feedback helped to combine the target audiences’ voice to Food for the Poor’s mission. Young people who take the initiative to be philanthropy-minded should be recognized for their efforts.”
AdGroup President Leonardo Dos Santos said that PhilADthropy was created with the hopes of giving back to the community, and the enthusiasm of both the students and the nonprofit organizations that participate is gratifying in every event.
“ PhilADthropy not only helps the local nonprofit organizations, but it also allows students to work for real-world clients and to create portfolio quality work,” he said. “You’d be surprised by the quality of the work that we create in just one night.”
For more information and to see students’ work from past years, go to philadthropy.com.