Fritter, ACUPD’s mascot, partners with Peyton’s K9s, a non-profit organization.
(Photo by Riley Fisher)
The ACU Venture Out Program will be selling shirts featuring Fritter, the K9, to raise funds for Peyton’s K9s, a non-profit organization that seeks to raise awareness for K9 police units in need.
Teaming up with Kelly Mann, assistant professor of interior design and owner of Fritter, students of the Introduction to Business class taught by Dr. Monty Lynn, professor of the department of management sciences, participating in the ACU Venture Out Program chose to support Peyton’s K9s. Peyton Estochin is a 10 year-old girl from Pennsylvania who started a small, grass-roots campaign to raise money for local police K9 units. The money raised is to procure the best protective gear for K9s on duty. The gear provided is received from LOF Defense, based in Alberta, Canada.
These will be “comfort color grey” T-shirts. For prices, the group is throwing a bone to students by selling the shirts for $15. Sales for these shirts are leaps and bounds ahead of what was expected from preorder. This preorder will continue until Saturday and more shirts will be available after they arrive.
Other groups have been howling to use Fritter imagery for different purposes, but Jimmy Ellison, chief of ACU PD said that the pooch’s picture needs to be protected.
“We’ve had lots of requests from different groups to use fritter imagery, but this group was a very worthwhile cause,” Ellison said.
Brittany Hancz, working marketing for the project, said, “This is more than a project at this point. We’ve already taken it past what we needed to, and now we just keep going.”
Jared Park, heading finance and accounting for the endeavor, said, “We could get a maximum profit from shirts, sell those for more, and in the long run give more money to the non-profit organization.”
In addition, LOF Defense is sponsoring Fritter, giving her a custom made ballistic vest.
When asked what she thought about the tactical vest she will be receiving, Fritter gave no comment.
