To celebrate 20 years of business, the event production agency Eventage is coordinating a series of 20 projects throughout 2018 centered on the concept of giving back. Project: Kindness will connect the firm's clients with causes that emphasize giving back; it will kick off in late June with a cleanup of Olmsted-designed South Mountain Reservation in Eventage’s hometown of South Orange, New Jersey.
This is the first time the company has celebrated a corporate anniversary. Eventage founders Matt and Jennifer Glass felt that they could take on the campaign since their agency has grown in recent years.
“We sat in our conference room earlier this year and put down every client in our database from the last 20 years, separating nonprofit and civic clients with brand clients. And then we brainstormed on how to connect them, literally drawing lines on the whiteboard between those which we felt matched well,” Matt Glass said. “We took our top ideas and started pitching.”
In July, Eventage will donate of 20 pairs of shoes, purchased from the NYRR Runcenter, to Team for Kids, the charity running team for New York Road Runners. Matching each pair purchased by Eventage, New Balance will also donate 20 pairs of shoes to NYRR’s free youth fitness programs.
In another project, the Art of Shaving will donate a portion of its products to going-home kits for patients of Yale New Haven Health’s Smilow Cancer Hospital. Eventage’s work with Smilow includes producing the hospital’s Closer to Free Ride cycling event since 2011.
In the spirit of the U.S. Open, Eventage plans to celebrate August by joining Yonex and New York Junior Tennis & Learning’s “Serve and Connect” program. Yonex will donate rackets and other tennis gear to the nonprofit, which connects officers from the 42nd Precinct in the Bronx and local children through tennis lessons.
Other projects in the lineup include donations from the beauty brand Pond’s to homeless teenage mothers at New York’s Covenant House; Eventage will also donate commencement regalia to 20 students with high financial need from the class of 2019 at Rutgers University Newark.
“We got the clients to sign on by simply asking them— the response has really been wonderful to see,” Matt Glass said. “We did some match-ups on our own and pitched them to both parties to see if they’d be interested and, for the most part, they are.”
The projects will take place throughout this year beginning in June, the month marking the company’s anniversary, and will continue through December.
