by The Cowl Editor on March 5, 2020
Campus
by Eileen Cooney ’23
Assistant News Editor
The For Good hand cream project started a year and a half ago as a vision for a business project in an MBA class taught by Dr. Helen M. Caldwell, assistant professor of marketing, here at Providence College.
Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., and Dr. Robert J. Camp teamed up to design the product after Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., read about an extract from the Tiberian root that has anti-aging properties. They developed a plan to create a hand cream after presenting it to their professor, Dr. Caldwell; Campbell loved it.
Since last October they have been developing the cream, and now they are in the marketing phase.
Originally, the hand cream was going to be called “forever,” but unfortunately that name was already taken. Last year, the project was adopted in an MBA marketing class by a group of students to be used as the focus of their semester project. The students named the hand cream For Good and Fr. Nicanor and his partner Dr. Camp went for it.
The hand cream is created in a little “kitchen” laboratory in the basement of Albertus Magnus Hall. It is a room that was used by construction workers when the new science building was being built, but Fr. Nicanor and his team of students now rent the space from the College for $1 a year. Here is where all the action takes place.
Students working in the lab help Fr. Nicanor, and for their services they get paid minimum wage. After the cream has been concocted in the lab, part of the students’ duties involve filling the plastic tubes, printing out labels, and applying the labels. The students involved in the project will also get an opportunity to be a part of the expansion of the For Good body products. Fr. Nicanor said a body butter and a serum are in the works for the future.
Additionally, Fr. Nicanor is searching for new student employees who would be willing to work on the project for minimum wage, specifically an English major who would be able to write a market campaign and a graphic designer who would be able help with art and design. Anyone interested is encouraged to contact him.
The goal of this project, says Fr. Nicanor, is to “set up a business labs experience for students interested in entrepreneurship in the same way that we have science lab for science majors.”
Currently, the hand cream is available for sale in the bookstore and on the bookstore’s website. Ten percent of the proceeds from sales of the hand cream are used to fund Fr. Nicanor’s student run lab that researches genes involved in skin cancer. In this way, a portion of the proceeds from the hand cream are going to be indirectly funding skin cancer research.
Fr. Nicanor also encourages all PC students to keep up with the For Good project on Instagram. Every day they will be posting pictures of the hand cream at different locations around campus, and there will be chances for students to enter contests to win free products. Additionally, pop-up shops in Slavin, Harkins, and the Ryan Center, will be coming soon so that students can try the product and purchase it.