Cloverdale Mall and Clover Leaf Seafoods teamed up to promote the mall’s Tuna Tuesdays food drive, with outstanding results. Originally hoping to raise 10,000 cans of tuna, which would be matched by Clover Leaf Seafoods, the mall instead collected 25,418.

In an interesting marketing twist, Lambton Mall mailed out 30,000 pieces of wrapping paper to local homes. One side of the paper had holiday-themed visuals, while the other side featured a full-color calendar of mall events.

The Macerich Company, with its patriotic and successful Old Glory*ous Celebration campaign already underway, pitched in to pay tribute to South Dakotans who aided the World War II effort.

Without a doubt, the shopping center industry as a whole seized the opportunity to support its neighbors, shoppers and communities after the 9/11 attacks. Shock was quickly redirected into action, and the response – from both people and shopping centers – was overwhelming.

Reviving Main Street: some retailers and developers are seeking to escape urban sprawl, and return to the days when people could gather in a community location, window shop, wave to their neighbors, and generally feel good about the place they’d chosen to live.

Examining the shopping center industry’s response after the 9/11 attacks. Many centers chose to forego Halloween celebrations, while most others proceeded with caution.

As part of its grand re-opening, Willow Grove Park aided charity by auctioning tabletop-sized carousel horses that were decorated by celebrities. The horses were replicas of the mall’s new carousel, a key attraction and visual focal point of the renovation. The event saw sales rise 40% over the previous year, food merchants reported an average sales increase of 90%, and more than $26,000 was raised to benefit cancer prevention.

Livingston Mall’s “Science Circus” and “Stargazer” events showed kids how fun science could be, helping to increase its club membership by 350 people.

Southglenn Mall became a sponsor of Freedom Dogs, a non-profit agency that rescues dogs from shelters and trains them to assist the physically disabled in their day-to-day lives.

Southgate Shopping Centre collected women’s business outfits that they no longer needed, and donated them to others seeking to enter the workforce. The center also arranged for haircuts, manicures, and facials.