Written by: Eliana Morales
Southern Adventist University’s partnership with Papa Johns gives students discounted pizza and has resulted in over $32,000 in contributions toward an endowed scholarship.
According to Lucas Patterson, associate director of strategic partnerships at Southern, the conversation about collaborating with a local business began in 2012 when a former Student Association (SA) senator pitched the idea to Advancement. Southern then partnered with the Papa Johns franchise group, Papa Johns Pizza of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
In a Feb. 15 press release emailed to the Accent, Papa Johns of Chattanooga stated that the franchise group began the partnership to provide Southern students a way to not only order pizza at a discounted rate, but also to give back to the university through the scholarship fund.
The pizza franchise did this by implementing a promo code system. According to Patterson, 17 store locations that span from Athens, Tenn., to Rome, Ga., participate in the program.
Fifteen percent of all online purchases that use the promo codes SAU999 or SAU33 are gifted to Southern, according to Papa Johns of Chattanooga. Students can get a large, one-topping pizza for $9.99 using SAU999 and 33% off their order with SAU33.
These codes are promoted on the screens in the Bietz Center and on flyers put into students’ mailboxes once a year, according to Patterson.
“I’ve used the discount codes four to five times so far, and I’m pretty happy with the money I’ve saved,” said freshman computer science major Justin Roberts.
Despite on-campus promotion, some students did not know about the offers until asked to comment on them by the Accent.
“I wish I would’ve known about it sooner, but now I’m definitely going to use the discount and tell my friends about it,” said freshman psychology major Kailey Reitz.
While Southern receives funds for scholarships from other companies and organizations, the partnership with Papa Johns of Chattanooga stands out to Patterson.
“I’m not aware of any that are quite as tied to commerce as this one is,” he said. “It’s like, ‘You buy from us, and we’ll give you back.’ So I think they’re really unique in that way.”
The money received from Papa Johns goes toward the SA Senate Leadership/Merit Endowed Scholarship. Papa Johns’ contribution to the endowment is currently over $32,000, according to Patterson.
Southern’s website states, “The purpose of the Student Association Senate Leadership/Merit Endowed Scholarship is to award individuals of the student body who show contributive and impactful leadership roles on and off campus.”
Since 2016, the endowment has awarded scholarships to 14 different students, and the total amount of scholarship money has exceeded $12,000, according to Patterson. The first student scholarship resulting from the funding was awarded in 2016 after the endowment reached its starting point of $25,000.
Since then, the endowment has grown thanks to the continued use of promo codes and gifts from donors. The spending policy for the endowment is 4.5%, and Southern awarded $1,750 to one student last year, according to the university’s website.
Students will continue to be awarded year after year, according to Patterson.
“We have money until Jesus comes,” he said. “Still, you always want people to continue giving. … The bigger that endowment is, the more you can give out every year.
“If someone walked in today and said, ‘I’d love to give a thousand dollars to the SA endowed scholarship,’ we’d be like, ‘Yes, yes please,’” he added, “because that will allow [SA] to give more out.”
