You and Who’sDay: 30 Cities in 90 Days – SoCal Success, Last Stops Pittsburgh and San Juan
This is the thirteenth installment of a Tuesday feature documenting Dan Gigante’s nationwide tour on behalf of his Buffalo-based, community-driven apparel company.
By Dan Gigante, President, You and Who
Happy You and Who’sday everyone! Before I get into recapping my travels last week, I want to first tell you that You and Who is one of three finalists in the running to receive some incredible (and free) marketing services by the kick-butt marketing firm, Crowley Webb and Associates. But we need your help in the final leg of this contest! The winner will be chosen by popular vote, and you can vote once daily per email address you have. Voting started on November 14th and runs through midnight on December 4th. These marketing services could give You and Who the needed push to really spread our mission nationally of helping those in need. Please vote daily, email your friends, tweet about us, tell your neighbor, etc…Help us help those who really need it. Voting takes place on their website. Every vote counts, and we appreciate each and every one we receive!
And now, onto my travels. It was back to California last week. During the second week of ”You and Who on JetBlue: 30 Cities in 90 Days,” I was in Northern California visiting Oakland, Sacramento, and San Francisco. Now, on the second-last week of the tour, it was Southern California’s turn, where I visited San Diego and Los Angeles. As a side note, it was rather funny to me that the week I thought I’d be escaping the cold in Buffalo, it ended up being just as warm back home as it was in SoCal.
San Diego was up first. We made in-roads with three organizations and are looking to finalize the details with all soon. I was able to meet with two great artists, which reminded me how much I love meeting our artists face-to-face. I then visited a handful of different neighborhoods searching for shops that would be a great fit to carry our shirts. Everyone was really helpful and overall the city was very welcoming.
Moving on to the Los Angeles area via Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner, I arrived first in Anaheim. I’ve been to LA before, but I’m always amazed at how large and spread out the metro area is. We’re finalizing a relationship with an organization in Anaheim and I visited some potential stores there as well. The next day, I met with an artist and had a great, inspiring meeting. He also introduced me to Charles Lee, who is the CEO of Ideation and also runs the !deation Conference in Chicago. From the conference site: “The Ideation Conference is a unique conference experience that gathers some of the most innovative thinkers and practitioners in the field of social good (e.g., businesses, organizations, influencers, etc.) in order to help fellow practitioners develop thoughts and tangible next steps for greater impact in their respective work.” This sounds right up our alley, and we plan to attend in 2012!
From there, I moved on to visit the headquarters of After School All-Stars. I had first learned of this great organization when I was in Las Vegas. My meeting with the folks at ASAS Las Vegas went so well that we set up a meeting for me to meet with After School All-Stars HQ in LA. Not only will we be working with the Los Angeles chapter in the future, but we will be working with all 12 of their chapters nationwide, starting with the eight cities that are part of You and Who’s network: Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, and South Florida (which includes Miami and Ft. Lauderdale). We are extremely excited about and proud of this partnership!
Dan give a You and Who shirt to Marci Lopez of After School All-Stars Los Angeles
Finally, I had a meeting with Shelter Partnership in downtown LA. The best part of You and Who working with this organization is that they run a resource center that distributes food and clothing to over 200 charities and organizations in LA County. They will be distributing our donations throughout the county, which means You and Who will indirectly be providing shirts to over 200 organizations in LA. I was able to visit numerous shops in LA and made key connections with some great local shop owners. And, I even found a great pizza place! If you’re in LA you should check out Tomato Pie Pizza and let me know what you think.
The 30 Cities in 90 Days run concludes this week with Pittsburgh and San Juan, Puerto Rico – as always, please get in touch if you know of anyone we could work with in those cities or would like to get involved in general – have a great week, everyone!
