University of North Carolina Wilmington students Andrew Livoni, Zoya Zimmerman and Nicholas Krepshaw never attended the same high school.

In fact, the threesome has neither laid eyes on each other nor been involved in real estate since first being accepted to UNCW.

But that all changed last week, when each was handpicked from more than 25 applicants by Do Good Real Estate founder and principal broker Ryan Crecelius to lead an ambitious marketing campaign for his realty company.

“They’re a solid group of students,” Crecelius, a 2006 UNCW alumnus, said. “They have some great ideas, and they are ready to move forward.”

The Wilmington-based company recently completed its inaugural ‘Do Good Intern’ contest search with the help of the UNCW Entrepreneurship Center.

Do Good Real Estate, as its name suggests, is committed to helping the community by donating 20 percent of its profits to area nonprofits. 

Jonathan Rowe, UNCW Entrepreneurship Center director, said Do Good’s quest to link UNCW students with real-time job opportunities aligns with a major goal of the center.

“We’ve placed 43 interns with local startups,” Rowe said. “By helping students get jobs and experience now, the better they are going to do once they graduate.”

Crecelius said the contest was organized through a social media-based website called Wildfire. The Wildfire platform, he said, allowed the contest to be promoted heavily through the Do Good Facebook page. In addition to devising a marketing plan for the local realty firm, contestants were also asked to submit an essay explaining why they wanted to have an internship with a company that has a social mission.

Shortly after the Feb.1 deadline, seven finalists were interviewed and Livoni, Krepshaw and Zimmerman were selected as the contest’s winners, sharing a $1,000 stipend as compensation for their future work.

“It was a very tough decision to make,” Crecelius said. “We had a lot of solid applicants, but these three really stood out during their interviews, and I’m glad to have them on board.”

Crecelius said his new interns will help develop and execute a “next generation” marketing campaign crammed with creativity and technology to further improve the company’s brand.  

It’s a plan that may require the interns, and possibly many others, to break a sweat.

“We’re currently planning an event on April 28 called the Do Good Dash,” said Livoni, a 21-year-old junior international business major. “It would be a 5K fun run on the UNCW campus, and the money raised would be sent to an area charity.”

Krepshaw, a 20-year-old sophomore biology and exercise services double major, added that, after the run the group plans to sponsor an expo featuring area businesses and nonprofits.

“It’s about putting area businesses in touch with area nonprofits,” Zimmerman, an 18-year-old freshman pre-business major, explained. “That’s an important part of Ryan’s business, and one of the reasons we applied.”

The group is also working diligently on various video campaigns, and is looking beyond social media to other modes that will expand Do Good’s reach.

“We want to stay away from social media because it’s already too saturated,” Livoni said. “[Do Good] already has a great brand, and what we want to do is get people into the ‘do- good’ feel of giving back.”