Hawai'i at Work
Giving aloha part and parcel of doing business in Isles

By Glenn Scott
Advertiser Staff Writer

When Jamba Juice shops gave away free 24-ounce smoothies in a recent charity fund-raiser, Jill Wheatman concedes the company was working hard to be different.

To have presented a more common type of food-and-beverage promotion — giving a percentage of the day's profits, for example —Êwould have seemed too tame for a new business trying to whip up its own healthy image in the Islands, she said.

So instead, Jamba Juice Hawai'i LLC, as part of a national promotion, invited customers to slug down a fruit drink for free. After that, it was up to customers to make donations to benefit the Kapi'olani Children's Miracle Network.

"This was something a little more tangible," Wheatman said. "Everyone is always looking for a nice new way to do things."

Other retailers have handed out freebies, of course. But Wheatman believes it did back up the company's marketing goal. It prompted folks to do exactly what the retailer wanted — try its products for breakfast and break the habit, at least for the day, of partaking of a heavier, less healthful nutritional start.

Wheatman said lines extended outside all morning as the shops served 6,500 free smoothies and took in nearly $6,000 to boost health programs at the Honolulu-based medical center. "And the money is still dribbling in," she said.

Colleen Sotomura, director of marketing and charitable services for the Hawai'i Community Foundation, said the giveaway was effective if it helped to boost the reputation of Jamba Juice as good corporate citizen.

Sotomura, whose staff reviews hundreds of non-profit fund-raising programs, ticked off programs in which retailers such as Pizza Hut, Murphy's Bar & Grill, Lion Coffee, Paul Brown Salon, Outback Steakhouse and Foodland Super Market, have donated goods and services to charities. Each event had its own mix of promotion and donation, but they all share what Sotomura says is an important element for doing business in Hawai'i — a component of charitable giving.

"Hawai'i is a very generous state," she said. "I think it's part of the culture."

A 1999 study commissioned by the foundation found that 27.5 percent more households in Hawai'i make charitable donations than households on the Mainland, and the average amount given per household is larger.

Sotomura also noted that Hawai'i small businesses support what she considers the most ubiquitous method for raising money here, the silent auction.