COLUMBIA, S.C. — Some local college business owners were given a unique opportunity Saturday as Columbia's mayor paid for them to take part in the city's Soda City Market.
Helping people and making them feel better is the simple business model for Yana Asha. She's the owner of Glizzy Boutique and a student at Columbia College. On Saturday, she took her business somewhere it's never been before - Columbia's Soda City Market.
"It gets my business a lot of exposure," she said. "I always do pop-up shops on campus and sometimes I do the flea markets. But I like this type of environment."
It's part of a new initiative coming from the mayor's Intercollegiate Council of Engagement. Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said they wanted to promote small student businesses and, he said, the best place to do that is the Soda City Market.
"We sat down and talked about some of the things we wanted to do," he said. "One was socialize the campuses more, integrate them - same time do something for the community."
Rickenmann said that he is covering the business licenses for those involved from his own personal money, limiting their operation costs. He said that the total amount could be in the ballpark of $200. He said it was a small price to pay to push for more businesses in Columbia.
"So many businesses in Columbia have started at Soda City. If you look, there's three of them in Five Points that are right next door to each other, all started here at Soda City and gone to brick and mortar," he said. "We've had tons of pop-up little restaurants that now have their own food trucks that have their own food trucks or brick and mortars, and it's happening because of what's going on here and we want to continue to embrace that and this is a good opportunity for them to try it out."
Taking advantage of the event was Gina Calise, a sophomore business student at USC who runs Gina's Custom Creations.
"I'm a full-time student, so it's a lot for me to have a full-year membership; so, just doing this saved me a hundred, a few hundred dollars."
She said being a part of a real market like Soda City is giving her experience and knowledge you can't get from a classroom.
"People have been walking past and saying, 'I have a daughter at this school or this school,'" she said. "And I can basically make whatever you want because it's all customizable; so, it's been really nice that people can pick up a business card and explore my website."
The mayor said the plan is to host this event up to four times per year and expand the entire 1700 block of Main Street.