VCU students create history

Spring break meant little sleep and
lots of work for more than 40 VCU
students who volunteered to participate
in the nation’s first CreateAthon
onCampus, a college-campus offshoot
of the 10-year-old “creative blitz”
CreateAthon.

VCU kicked off the CreateAthon
this past Thursday morning with
students from the VCU School of
Mass Communications working 24
hours straight to create marketing
materials for nonprofit organizations
with limited marketing budgets.

Students majoring in creative
advertising and public relations
worked in teams to create logos, Web
sites, brochures and more for these
12 local nonprofits. After a sleepless
Thursday night, the teams presented
the materials to their respective organizations.

Peyton Rowe, an associate professor
and VCU’s onCampus director,
said CreateAthon is a great way to
provide students with hands-on
experience while allowing them to
help the community.

Rowe has participated in professional
CreateAthon events for four
years but wanted to bring the experience
to a student level.

“It’s one of those things I hope will
be such a good experience for the
students, for the nonprofits, (that)
it will continue to grow,” Rowe said.
“That’s really what happened at the
professional level.”

Rowe said 43 local nonprofit organizations
applied to the CreateAthon
but only 12 were chosen.

“We considered which nonprofits
had the least marketing resources and
the best fit to what the students could
provide,” she said.

Rowe has learned to gauge the
success of the CreateAthon events by
the reactions of the nonprofits.

“We had 11 presentations and
three clients were moved to tears,”
she said.

Rowe plans to approach other
universities with the idea and hopes
they will get involved.

Creative-advertising student Chyrie
Sell has worked with Rowe since last
semester, preparing for the event. Sell
helped with choosing the nonprofits
and recruiting event sponsors and
student volunteers. She also designed
the green T-shirt, which every student
wore on the CreateAthon day, and
was the team leader for two of the
student-group projects.

“I never really had experience in
that, myself, and it gave me an idea
of how it all worked,” Sell said.

The most memorable moment for
Sell was when her team presented its
materials and ideas to local nonprofit
connectRichmond.

“When we presented to connectRichmond,
we came up with ideas
that went above and beyond what they
asked of us,” Sell said. “They were
totally excited. I was so relieved to
know that they liked our ideas.”

Sell was among many students who
didn’t sleep a wink between Thursday
and Friday, but they managed to take
a break for a 4 a.m. dance party.

“We worked straight through,” she
said. “Up until about an hour before
we gave our presentation. We worked
like dogs.”

But it was worth every waking
moment, Sell said.

“It reminds me how fulfilling it
is to be able to help someone,” she
said. “I’m more grateful. I want to
participate in more events like this. It was a very humbling experience.”

Sell said if VCU holds a CreateAthon next year and if students are interested
in participating, they should.
“The experience is well worth it,” she said. “Throughout those 24 hours,
you get tired and bogged down, but as soon as you present your work to
them, it was well worth it-to see the smiles on their faces and the tears in
their eyes.”

Rowe said the students are still in the production phase, because some of
the marketing materials require the help of outside vendors. These materials
could not be completed in the 24-hour timeframe.

A celebration will be held April 24 to thank the volunteers and to present
any additional marketing materials to the nonprofits.