Berry College students recently developed a marketing plan for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), as part of an Academic Community Engagement Course this semester.
CASA acts as a voice for abused and neglected children who are involved in the local juvenile court system for foster care, and helps to find a permanent, safe and loving home for each child. Students had to capture the heart and mission of CASA in a marketing plan that included improvements for the website, social media and fundraising strategies. Students also created a promotional or informational video and a business card.
After each group presented their marketing plans, an overall winner was chosen. The winning group of Anthea Phitides, Steven Moore, Brady Baxter and Megan Michel will have their marketing plan implemented by CASA.
“This course, being a community engagement course, has been a really neat opportunity to give back to the community as a part of our academic curriculum. It has been a joy to work with a non-profit, to give back to them and understand what it is like to work as an actual consultant in the business world,” said Michel, a senior marketing major. “Also, I think a lot of our class didn’t understand that the foster care system is a huge need in our community, and so just being able to bring awareness to the Berry community about that through our projects has been a really great opportunity.”
This is one of many Academic Community Engagement courses at Berry, which are beneficial to the students and the community partners.
“Our program really enjoyed working with the Berry students. This marketing class came through in just about every area for us,” said CASA Advocacy Coordinator Amy Markwald. “We don’t have funds to do this type of stuff ourselves so it was so helpful for our program.”
The course was an upper level marketing class taught by Assistant Professor of Marketing Melissa Clark. For more information about Academic Community Engagement courses at Berry, please visit: https://berry.edu/stulife/service/ace/
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Written by Public Relations Student Assistant Megan Benoit
