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Algonquin College PR Students Make A Buzz for LiveWorkPlay!

UPDATE: Algonquin PR Students Select LiveWorkPlay For This Year’s Fundraising Campaign!

Every year the first year Public Relations students at Algonquin College throw a fundraising campaign for a charity of their choice. Over the past 30 years, the students have raised $300,000 for charity, and this year’s event is expected to raise over $20,000.

The class divides into about 10 teams and in the second semester each group pitches their charity of choice on November 30. This forms the basis for how the class as a collective will select the recipient charity for their fundraising event.

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The team of Kate Valentine, Seamus Sullivan, Rachel McWhinnie, Keanna Sherman, Derek Bathurst and
Jordan Ferguson will be pitching LiveWorkPlay. Kate has a sibling who has benefited from support provided by LiveWorkPlay, and the team were inspired not only by information that she provided, but also by the intensely local flavour of the LiveWorkPlay organization. “We thought it would be great to focus on a charity that was started by local people in our own community” said Seamus.

Before the “big pitch” to the class there is a pre-pitch week where teams seek to raise the profile of their chosen charities. The team will be developing LiveWorkPlay awareness by dressing up as bumblebees for the entire week! They have organized the week to including themes of living, working, and playing and will be encouraging their classmates to take photos and post them to Twitter with a mention of @LiveWorkPlay and hashtag #MakeABuzz.

“Some dancing may be involved,” said Jordan. “But we want to keep some of our plans as a surprise.”

Keenan Wellar, LiveWorkPlay Co-Leader and Director of Communications, met with the team earlier in the month to answer questions and talk about what is most important about the organization.

“The first thing you notice about this team is the enthusiasm, but also that while they are intending to have fun, they are also taking it very seriously and they want their campaign to be the best that it can be. They also respected that the approach to their campaign should be consistent with LiveWorkPlay culture and they put a lot of effort into understanding how we talk about the people we support, and how we communicate our work to the community.”

Watch the team’s progress on Twitter with #MakeABuzz