Founded in 1977, Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) sorority is Longwood's oldest African-American Greek organization for women. Every year the sorority sponsors a variety of on-campus activities during their Skee Week, but this year also includes an event aimed at helping local businesses.
Buying Black Friday, scheduled for April 10, offers discounts to the Longwood community for patronizing participating African American-owned businesses that day. AKA Vice President Tara Carr said, "Buying Black Friday started as an idea between some of the members where we were talking about how difficult it is to thrive in this economy for anyone right now."
Looking to help support the Farmville economy and local businesses, AKA members approached several storeowners with their Buying Black Friday idea. Sophomore Jameka Jones, AKA public relations chair, said businesses are "really excited, and everybody is really open to it. They have been really open to giving discounts."
Five Farmville businesses are participating: Deloris' Beauty Salon; Carrington's Music; clothing stores Owen's Originals and City Wear; and Healthy Living, which offers healthy foods and Earth-friendly products. In order to receive a discount on Buying Black Friday, Carr said, "All you have to do is just go, show them your Longwood ID, or if you have a flier to let them know how you heard about it, they're going to honor that."
AKA is hoping this event will help generate more traffic for these businesses. Carr said the purpose of the event is "that you go there on that day and get your discount, but you don't stop there, students keep going back and supporting these businesses in this rough time." Participating businesses will be offering a variety of discounts. According to Jones, City Wear will be offering a 20 percent discount, Deloris' Beauty Salon will be offering discounts based on the type of service and Carrington's music allows patrons to select their discount from a bag, ranging from 5 to 20 percent.
In addition to providing support for local businesses, AKA has tailored their Buying Black Friday program to several other Longwood initiatives, including sustainability and improving relationships between Longwood and Farmville. "What really inspired me with the sustainability thing, Healthy Living has things like tissue paper and toilet paper . with all kinds of natural ingredients," Carr said. By offering discounts, businesses are hoping to attract student customers and establish a larger clientele. Jones said, "Longwood has been talking a lot this semester about building relationships with the local community and the town, and this is a chance for people to get out to just meet people. . Getting to meet the people is something that I've enjoyed from the program."
Buying Black Friday is the culmination of Skee Week, which showcases a different aspect of AKA each day. Events include dinners, documentary viewings and service projects. Carr said, "[Monday] we're having a spaghetti dinner just so you can kind of meet and greet . we're opening up our home to get to know us. [Tuesday] we're stepping, then on Wednesday we're doing a community service project . [and] on Thursday we're doing a documentary discussion to show more of the intellectual side of AKA."
AKA President Sierra Robertson said, "The programs go along with our international program. We have five different platforms that we work toward, and each day is going toward a platform we have." The Buying Black Friday event incorporates the economic keys to success platform, which Robertson said "basically teach[es] you if you spend your money wisely it will pay off."Buying Black Friday is not a fundraiser for AKA, but rather a way to build relationships and help local businesses: "We're not getting any money out of this. .We're doing this just to promote awareness around the community and to help businesses out. This is our way of giving back to the community," Carr said.
AKA hopes Buying Black Friday will encourage the Longwood community to start looking to local businesses rather than chain stores for more purchases. Carr said, "For smaller companies, the little mom and pop shops, it's especially hard for them and we're so quick to run to Wal-Mart when we have people who are just like us trying to make it. So we wanted to put some awareness out there to encourage students and faculty to support smaller businesses rather than going to the bigger name brands.
