The weekend has a bustling summer event in store, an initiative from the partnership that coordinated the “Small Biz Crawl” in downtown Augusta for Small Business Saturday last November.
“Camp Soul City” is the latest project from Downtown Soul City, an informal association of downtown merchants that plans promotional community events. Camp Soul City, which will be held Saturday, is a free, self-guided crawl in which nine stores offer activities to be completed participants in order to earn “merit badges,” or novelty buttons.
“July is kind of a down month for retailers,” said Jennifer Tinsley, owner of health and beauty shop Field Botanicals, one of the participating businesses. “Everybody’s come back from vacation; it’s hot. It provides something fun for people to go out and do.”
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In keeping with the cross marketing at the heart of the Soul City collaboration, the summer camp-themed festivities will be an “extremely cooperative” affair, said Tinsley. Curious potential customers can start their sojourn at any one of the locations to pick up a camp map to guide them, and a camp lanyard to identify them and keep track of their merit badges.
Each shop will have activities planned that correspond with their business. Augusta Candle Co. will offer citronella candle making. At the Book Tavern, crawlers will have the opportunity to make their own zines, or self-published mini-magazines.
Field Botanicals will offer do-it-yourself bug spray.
“We sell natural bug spray, and it’s really popular, so we thought we’d do that,” said Tinsley. “We’re going to mix up the ingredients, we’ll have stations, we’ll have people helping and instructions and everything.”
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Camp Soul City is an example of an ad hoc collective of retailers harnessing fun, community-focused marketing to benefit downtown business. Tinsley notes how Book Tavern’s “Where’s Waldo” campaign—in which people find dolls of the Waldo character from the popular books hidden in local businesses and exchange proofs of the finds for prizes—piques curiosity and draws people to learn more about their own city.
“A lot of people in the field think, ‘Oh, we didn’t know this was down here, we didn’t know there was so much downtown,” Tinsley said. “It’s more of a discovery for people to realize what resources they have downtown.”
Camp Soul City will be held in the Augusta Downtown Historic District, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The following stores are participating:
Augusta & Co. – Edible Campfire Building
Augusta Candle Co. – Citronella Candle Making
The Bee’s Knees Coffee & Curios – Coffee Cupping Class
The Book Tavern – Make a Zine
FIELD Botanicals – DIY Bug Spray
Freshwater Design Co. – Friendship Bracelet
Grantski Records – Tie Dye
Mod Ink – Poster Pull
Westobou Gallery – Color-a-Patch
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
