Student Savings Club provides students with discounts at 30 local businesses

The Seattle University Student Savings Club is making it easier for students to save money by shopping at dozens of local businesses.

The club allows students to utilize their Seattle U ID cards to receive discounts at businesses on and around Capitol Hill.

"While we have the Student Savings Club, not a lot of students know about it," said Kenny McCray, senior strategic communications major. "So we're trying to get the word out there so that students can take advantage of the opportunities."

This is the first year the program has been fully funded and functional at Seattle U. Emmanuelle Escandar, the 2008-2009 ASSU vice president of finance, started looking into the Student Savings Club program at the end of last year, and the project was taken over by Cole Hunter, this year's ASSU vice president of finance.

Hunter, junior accounting major, said they are currently in the marketing phase. The plan of action for the program is to create a more Seattle U specific logo and to launch a more accessible Web site for the program through the ASSU Web site.

The goal is to first re-brand the program to cater to Seattle U because many students have shown an interest in something similar to the University of Washington's Husky Card program.

According to Hunter, the plan is for students to slowly become accustomed to the program through advertising via word of mouth, flyers, e-mails and Facebook ads. ASSU is also using its "Be Heard" program and other media sites to create a portal for more student input on the project.

"We're hoping this will be more effective because we're really trying to be very intentional about our social media usage," said Mark Maddox, ASSU commuter representative.

Both Maddox and McCray are Student Savings Club representatives for ASSU. The two representatives are trying to create a basic sense of recognition and familiarity of the program on campus.

The Student Savings Club program currently has 30 businesses on the list of student discounts. Every year the school is allowed to add roughly five businesses to that list. ASSU representatives decide on which businesses to add through voting. Hunter said they are in the process of narrowing it down to what Seattle U students like.

Some of the more popular places currently offering Seattle U discounts include Caffé Vita, Broadway Grill, Desert Tanning, Yoshino's Teriyaki and Jamba Juice.

"Caffé Vita is a place where I go to study a lot, so that's the place I utilize the discount most of all," Maddox said. "We're hoping it's kind of a chain reaction of us planting that seed and getting students to use their student ID for discounts."

Students receive a 10 percent discount at Caffé Vita. Businesses participating in the program should have a Student Savings Club sticker on the door of their business to let students know where they can receive a discount.

According to Hunter, with this year being the first active year for the program at Seattle U, it will be a trial.

"In the next couple of months we'll have the Web site up and word of mouth out there so more students know this is available for free," Hunter said. "We'll see how students respond to it, and then determine if we should continue this project in a more long-term relationship or if we should discontinue it."

But for now, the focus of the new program is to get the word out to let students know what is available.

"I hope that in the next two to three years this can be something that most students use on a daily basis," McCray said.

Kate may be reached at kganiron@su-spectator.com.