Robinsons-May Offering Pre-Opening Charity Shopping Day

As executive director of Food Share, Jim Mangis jumps at just about any opportunity to raise money for the nonprofit Ventura County food bank. That made the offer by the Robinsons-May department store easy to accept.

In advance of its November opening at Ventura’s redesigned Pacific View Mall, the store has offered 115 local nonprofit groups an opportunity to sell tickets to a private day of shopping. All proceeds raised from sales of the $5 tickets will go back to the charitable organizations.

“If 300 people take these tickets, that’s $1,500; if 600 people buy them that’s $3,000,” Mangis said. “If we’re able to raise $3,000, you multiply that out and it represents a whole lot of food, probably $60,000 worth of food into the community.”

Community groups taking part include social-service organizations, school clubs, church groups and a variety of other nonprofits. The shopping day is scheduled for Nov. 17, two days prior to the store’s public opening.

“What’s important about this is that it’s easy,” Mangis said. “Sometimes you get these opportunities to raise money and it becomes more of a burden than a help. Really, they’ve set this up. It’s easy and fun to do.”

Like Mangis, Barbara Bauman, present of the Ventura County branch of the American Assn. of University Women, appreciates the low-impact nature of the benefit.

“It’s an opportunity to raise money for our charities without any overhead. That way we can use all the money for our scholarships and don’t have to take anything out of what we raise,” Bauman said. “My sister-in-law lives out in Canyon Lake, and when [Robinsons-May] opened their store in Temecula, her women’s club made quite a bit of money.”

For Robinsons-May, the fund-raising program is typical of its new store openings. The fund-raisers serve as both good publicity and community service.

“We feel it’s the most gracious way to enter a community,” said Milinda Martin, special events coordinator for the chain.

“Because we’re based in Southern California and understand the importance of community causes in the markets we have stores in, we believe in supporting the community organizations,” Martin said. “It brings to us information about the community, what charities are important, what issues are important.”

Leana Bowman, director of the Gull Wings Children’s Museum in Oxnard, said the ticket sale promotion couldn’t have come at a better time for her organization.

“This is our slow time; back-to-school is slow for us,” she said. “It’s a fairly painless fund-raiser, which is hard to find. Most fund-raisers, if you walk away with 50% of what you actually make, you consider yourselves lucky.”