Towson University’s Student Government Association has an idea that could help students get discounts at local businesses.

Some students will receive discount cards, created by the company College Discount Cards just before finals week, according to SGA Treasurer Neal Rivera.

According to the College Discount Cards Co-Creator Bruce Twersky, he wanted to work with Towson because he thought the idea of a discount card followed Towson’s motto of “Thinking Outside.”

Rivera said that he and SGA President Matt Sikorski are polling students around campus to find out the most popular businesses in the area that students would want to see on the card.

“We want to make sure that students are really going to use these cards at food and retail places, and we need to make sure that these aren’t cards students are just going to throw over their shoulders,” Rivera said.

According to Twersky, some of the businesses interested so far include Chipotle, Greene Turtle, Panera Bread, Five Guys, and Rita’s.

Sikorski said that the idea for these cards started in February when he and the other executive board members were campaigning and thought it would be something interesting.

“Discount cards have been around for a while, but what inspired me is my fraternity had a discount card with six businesses on it, and during campaigning last year, I made discount cards one of my goals for retail businesses and food,” he said.

For the finals week pilot program, 5,000 cards have been ordered, more of which could be added in the spring semester pending on the project’s success.

The cards will be given out at different activities around campus, although no large-scale handout of the cards has been scheduled yet, according to Sikorski.

“We hope to give the cards out in small groups, such as basketball game giveaways, dropping some off at the [University Union] info desk, giving them to students groups, or even just going out to the Beach and handing them out,” he said. “But we are still trying to come up with a logistically larger event to hand them out.”

Rivera said that the 5,000 cards would cost the SGA about $5,000, but Sikorski said he is not concerned with the SGA’s ability to pay for the cards.

“Within our budget, we have an initiative fund for the SGA as a whole and initiatives that I want to start, so we will be taking money from those accounts,” Sikorski said.

In the year that the cards are active, Sikorski said he hopes that students can save more than $100,000.

Rivera said these cards will stand out over other discount cards in the past because of the higher number of businesses and the level of discount students will receive.

“We want to get significant deals that could save around a dollar a purchase, or buy one get one free deals as opposed to five percent off their dinner,” he said.

Both Sikorski and Rivera said that they are very excited for these cards, and they want the relationship between Towson SGA and College Discount Cards to last beyond this year.

“Hopefully we can set up a partnership for years to come,” Sikorski said.