PR Promo of the Day

Sometimes the best PR is from a citizen journalist, promoting from the heart... creating overflow PR efforts.
My cause today is Big Warm-Up. Give a coat, warm a heart.

The Big Warm Up is a Lands' End sponsored community outreach program that aims to provide coats for the homeless by asking able people to donate a coat at the Lands' End Shop at Sears as winter approaches.

This campaign was kicked off in Boston on November 2nd - where the Lands' End team has paired up with the Massachusetts Coalition for Homeless. It runs for the next 28 days nationally and needs your help! In Boston (Prudential Center), there is an installation with 786 figures representing those in the city without a coat. Imagine the number nationwide and worldwide. It may be easy to walk past someone asking for change, but try and ignore almost 1000 blank faces standing out in the cold.

Visit the interactive flash-site (link above) and you'll find heartbreaking photos but mostly statistics about people who are homeless in many different environments (the street, hospitals, recovery centers, etc.) If you need the facts in order to donate they are all there. Or, if you're going to get a new winter coat anyway, donate your old one and receive 20% off your purchase made at Lands' End Shop at Sears. (It's not JUST a marketing ploy... it will actually do some good.)

• Did you know that 3.5 Americans are homeless and 1/3 of that total is comprised of homeless FAMILIES?
• 1.3 million of our homeless are CHILDREN. (You can't tell me they all didn't try or have a drug problem... imagine if that had been you.)
  
• Today, 1,843 coats have been donated... not enough.
• Only 146 coats have been donated in the state of NY. There are enough people in NYC alone to give up an old coat to someone who will wear it everyday instead of the one day you will wear it to clothe all of NY's homeless.

Can't just give for the sake of giving? You'll get a unique code when you donate that can be traced back to where your coat was donated.

Also, promote the cause to friends by passing on word of mouth info, copying the link to people around the office or becoming a fan on Facebook. See social media IS the new media, and our slow but sure answer to world peace! (I may or may not have just watched Miss Congeniality.)