The Rochester Every Day program, an initiative launched by the Rochester Center for Community Leadership in 2003, has certainly in the last six years achieved its main goal to provide an economic incentive for students to patronize local businesses by partnering with them to give students a discount. But while this great system has expanded to include over 150 businesses, it is not well publicized. As a result, the potential of this program to effectively get students interested in supporting local businesses has faltered, and students are missing out on many deals.
While there is already a link to the RED Web site on the Student Life page of the UR site, RCCL should also look to post a link on the front page of the Hive Web site. The RED Web site itself would be more helpful if it explained how students could obtain a RED sticker. It would be beneficial for RCCL to proactively reach out to students by putting posters in highly trafficked areas that showcase the deals RED offers and informs students on how they can get more information
As a baseline, most of the RED businesses offer students 10 percent off their bill and a number accept URos. Some, however, are even greater for example, one business offers students two-for-one deals when they show their ID with the RED sticker. For the average student who finds eating out off campus to be a pricey venture, these discounts coupled with bus routes that often have stops near these businesses would offer them an affordable option
The point of this program in the first place was to get students off campus and more connected with the city of Rochester. But if students are unaware of its existence, then it makes the fact that these discounts exist moot. RCCL needs to not only continue to let this program expand, like they’ve done since its inception, but also communicate its existence to the student body.
