Get up, go shop, make a difference

What is P25 worth these days anyway? It certainly won’t buy you a meal. It’s not even enough to pay for parking at the mall. At most, it’ll buy you a bottle of water and a pack of cheap, sugar-loaded gum.

If you ask retailer Golden ABC (GABC), however, owner of brands Penshoppe, Oxygen, ForMe, Memo, Regatta and, recently, Tyler, P25 can go much farther than just spontaneously-bought convenience store goods. Twenty-five pesos, if you look to the company’s recently-launched corporate social responsibility program Get Up, can help build homes, contribute to the growth of literacy, support environmental causes and even inspire youth nation to love and discover their own culture.

Social networking: For the 25th year of Golden ABC, company president Bernie Liu is heeding a “call to action to do something valuable for others and the country.”

Coming into their 25th year in the fashion business, GABC’s launch of Get Up will benefit four different advocacies concerning seven different partner NGOs. The advancement of education, the care of the environment, the nurturing of Philippine arts and culture and the promotion of community building are the main objectives of this CSR program, benefiting well-established non-profit organizations such as Children’s Hour, public school champion Aklat, Gabay, Aruga Tungo sa Pag-angat at Pag-asa, Museo Pambata, Dynamic Teen Company, WWF Philippines, Habitat for Humanity and Gawad Kalinga. “Fashion is our business, yes. But our mission goes beyond profitability. As we look back on our 25 years, we are proud to have built a successful organization based on time-tested values, with a strong adherence to integrity and service,” says Golden ABC president Bernie Liu. “Get Up is not just about what people wear, but it is also the call to action to do something valuable for others and the country.”

And for the first time, GABC is engaging their customers’ sense of social responsibility as well.

For every P1,000 single-receipt purchase made at any GABC store, P25 is donated to the advocacy of choice of each customer. Upon completing a buy, customers are given a lace token and a voucher inscribed with a number code and instructions on how they can complete their donation. It starts by logging onto www.getup.ph, where you learn more about each GABC advocacy and the different partner organizations. With another click, you can choose which cause to put in your P25 donation.

Up and about: Efren Peñaflorida, founder of Dynamic Teen Company and Get Up ambassador, says, “We can all be heroes in our own way…We can get up for the people we love and for the things we want to do.”

Right now, education seems to be a priority of Golden ABC customers; the Get Up site shows that about 40 percent of donations are directed to the development of learning and literacy. It probably has something to do with Dynamic Teen Company founder Efren Peñaflorida being the ambassador for the entire Get Up campaign. Hailed CNN Hero of the Year in 2009, Peñaflorida, along with a number of volunteers, use karitons or pushcarts to bring around educational materials to streetchildren, out-of-school youths, and children involved in gangs and fraternities.

To engage the youth, which make up a majority of GABC’s customer base, even more, every lace token and voucher comes with an augmented reality feature that can be also accessed on the “Get Up” website (the first time a retail company combines cyber cool with CSR). When directed to webcams, the printed pattern on the voucher reveals an animated interpretation of the cause and each advocacy. Just for this alone, maybe your P25 will already be worth it.

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To find out more about Get Up, log onto www.getup.ph.