Adelaida’s Cocina—“Always baked from the heart” reads the top of the business card that San José State marketing students delivered to Adelaida Ortiz, a local Latina micro-entrepreneur on December 4^th. They also delivered business cards in Spanish, with the tagline “Siempre hormear desde el corazón” so that she could reach her mainly Spanish speaking costumers within San José. During their class final presentation, these students explained to the audience, and to Adelaida, that they chose that tagline because it spoke to the love she put into baking every loaf of bread, and excitedly shared how this messaging would be amplified on Adelaida’s newly established Facebook and Yelp pages.

The collaboration between these students and Adelaida is just one of a handful of marketing students at San José State that were partnered with local Latina business women as part of CommUniverCity’s Marketing Smarts Program.  Their goal for the semester, under the guidance of Dr. Bobbi Makani and Dr. Marilyn Easter, was to deliver comprehensive marketing plans (think: creative messaging, Facebook pages, and websites) that would take these women’s businesses to the next level.

This is the second semester of the Marketing Smarts program and this program illustrates a symbiotic service-learning model. As one student, Jim Heintz, testifies: “You hear of life changing experiences and here we have been given the opportunity to change not only the life of Aurilia and the other entrepreneurs we are assisting, but our own lives as well.”   On one hand, this program harnesses the creativity and expertise of business students to help local entrepreneurs in the community. On the other hand, it gives students marketing experience from the “real world” and allows them to work on a project that they know will make a difference in people’s lives.

This program was a partnership between CommUniverCity San José, Step Up Silicon Valley, Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, Franklin McKinley Women’s Initiative and Franklin McKinley Children’s Initiative. To learn more about CommUniverCity’s other service learning programs, check out the programs listed on our website and sign up for our monthly newsletter.