Written by Jessica Ardrey
If you were in the Hammon Student Center on Tuesday and Wednesday the week before Thanksgiving, you might have seen something you never expected to see on Harding’s campus: two giant kegs with students lined up to get a drink.
No, Harding has not gone morally bankrupt. The kegs were filled with root beer and were part of a project called HU on Tap.
This program is a prototype created by students in the Selected Marketing Topics class in the business department. It started as a case study competition through the American Marketing Association. The students’ goal was to come up with a marketing plan for UNICEF’s Tap Project.
The Tap Project began in 2007 in New York City. It started with a few local restaurants asking their customers to donate a dollar or more for the tap water they usually drank for free. The idea spread quickly and soon became a national ordeal.
The purpose of the Tap Project is to provide clean, safe drinking water to countries that have none, including parts of Iraq in 2008. According to its Web site UNICEF is “working with its partners to reduce the number of people without access to safe water and basic sanitation by 50 percent by 2015” and trying to raise $2 million by 2010.
The marketing students ran with the idea and developed a fundraising strategy to test on campus. Within a few days, HU on Tap was in full swing. To promote the event, students put up signs above sinks in restrooms all over campus, posted signs everywhere and made a chapel announcement, complete with a video presentation by Bethany Brown.
Part of the plan to raise money involved the sale of tie-dyed T-shirts, which the AMA funded and the students made by hand. They only made 30 shirts so they would not have a lot of leftovers. The shirts, however, were a hit. At $7 a shirt, they sold out completely on the first day.
“Even our teacher was a little doubtful of us selling so many hand-dyed shirts,” marketing student Erica Greer said.
HU on Tap’s biggest endeavor, however, was the root beer. They set up huge kegs in the Student Center and sold root beer (on tap, of course) for two bucks a glass. Students lined up across the Student Center to get a taste and to help a good cause.
The students also organized a benefit concert at Midnight Oil. Musical acts included From the Hollow and Craig Featherstone. Even though the concert was free, audience members were encouraged to donate money to the HU on Tap project.
“The concert was just a really fun and really good way to raise awareness for the project,” Greer said.
As of right now, UNICEF is not aware of Harding’s efforts to raise money for the Tap Project. Also, because of funding by the AMA, 100 percent of HU on Tap’s proceeds will go to the organization.
“We were really just hoping to raise enough money to make this project a viable source of funding so UNICEF will recognize this strategy as something colleges everywhere can take part in,” marketing student Bryan Vershum said.
The students did just that. In just a few days, HU on Tap raised $1,300 for the Tap Project. They plan to send an anonymous check to UNICEF.
“It was a pretty big deal,” Greer said. “Even we were surprised.”
Greer hopes HU on Tap will continue to raise money for UNICEF in the future and to set an example, encouraging colleges to implement similar projects on their own campuses.
