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The online marketplace Groupon has added Rogers Park to Discover Downtown, a program designed to promote local businesses in select Chicago neighborhoods by creating a collection of deals to incentivize people to explore the area.

The Discover Rogers Park Collection includes Glenwood Dance Studio, Bark Place, Leather Archives and Museum, North Loft Yoga and Sweet Magic Studio, among others.

In addition to the Discover Rogers Park Collection, the company announced in a press release they also allocated $5,000 to help fund the Taste of Clark Street, an event that shows off the different aspects of the Clark Street dining community within Rogers Park.

The Rogers Park Business Alliance helped to create the collection, according to Sandi Price, the organization’s executive director.

The group provides professional resources for small businesses in the area, including providing loans for small businesses and hosting workshops where local business owners can network. It also hosts events such as the Taste of Clark Street and the Rogers Park Dinner Crawl.

The organization hosted an event where Groupon representatives could meet with the business owners of the area. At the workshop, Price said Groupon sales representatives discussed what kinds of deals businesses could offer based on the services or products provided by the businesses.

After the workshop, the Rogers Park Business Alliance was hands-off, according to Price. It was then up to Groupon to choose the 15 businesses to include, which the company met with at the workshop or had worked with previously.

Sandra Vrthein, one of the founders of Glenwood Dance Studio (7017 N. Glenwood Ave.), a dance studio located a mile north of Loyola, has worked with Groupon for almost five years. Even before the release of the Rogers Park Collection, she was able to find success with Groupon.

“It’s always been a nice, steady trickle of people that I feel wouldn’t have heard about our business otherwise,” Vrthein said. “In fact, most of the people that get that Groupon deal tell me they wouldn’t have found out about the studio if they hadn’t found it on Groupon so it has been great at bringing in new people.”

Maria Spanos, co-founder of North Loft Yoga (6560 N. Sheridan Road), said she believes that the collection is a good first step in bringing more traffic to Rogers Park.

“I think more people need to invest in Rogers Park,” Spanos said. “It is such a diverse, big pool of people. There are so many beautiful things about Rogers Park and I feel like not a lot of people know about it.”

Despite the enthusiasm of local business owners, some Loyola students think the new collection may need more than just discounts if it’s going to be used by students.

Maggie Christie, a first-year sports management major, said she thinks if Loyola starts promoting the use of Groupon, students may take advantage of the deals in Rogers Park.

“I feel like first-year students especially will just be like, ‘Let me download the app and see how it works’ and then use it because these businesses are so close,” Christie said.

Hubert Gawin, a senior nursing major, echoed Christie and said visibility would be key to Groupon’s success on campus.

“If there are deals around here that I could use, I don’t see why I wouldn’t use it,” Gawin said. “We are all pretty tech savvy and trying to save money so I think that if it’s something that’s accessible, people will use it.”

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