Centennial public relations students get environmentally conscious while practicing their writing skills

As part of its commitment to global citizenship, community involvement, and helping students grow into leaders of tomorrow, Centennial College recently participated in the ClimateSpark Social Venture Challenge. This past October, Corporate Communications and Public Relations students dedicated their time to reviewing submissions, writing comments, and creating mock releases for each of ClimateSpark’s social venture projects. Not only has this helped students develop their writing skills; it also gave them the opportunity to work with a real client.

The ClimateSpark Social Venture Challenge is a three-part, nine week online challenge that was launched on September 15, 2011. It is open to any social venture – business, program, or community initiative – that can demonstrate financial sustainability with a social good. For ClimateSpark, this social good must be a climate benefit to the City of Toronto. Increasing energy efficiency, reducing emissions, or reducing waste are some examples.

Corporate Communications and Public Relations students read and evaluated round one contestants’ project entries. Based on what they learned in class, students wrote mock news releases for each social venture project, with the focus being the project had made the “Top 20”. News releases were shared with the project coordinators and it is hoped that some of them will be used in the future.

The Top 10 finalists were announced on November 21, 2011, and the winner will be announced on February 3, 2012, at the ClimateSpark Launch celebration.

Getting involved with ClimateSpark has not only helped Corporate Communications and Public Relations students develop their writing skills. It has also jump started their experience in working for a real company. Most importantly, it showed students the kinds of community projects that Centennial College participates in. By evaluating ClimateSpark’s social venture projects based on innovation, client impact and viability, students represented Centennial College’s commitment to creating good global citizens and community leaders.

By Alexandra Babakhanova, CC&PR Student, Class of 2012