News & Events

Between his Colgate coursework, extracurriculars, and social activities, Mike Schneider ’10, has plenty on his plate.

As of this summer, though, he has had one more thing to keep him busy: his own company.

The Hillsdale, N.J., native, and a friend launched in June an online shopping website that helps consumers decide what electronic products to buy.

Schneider and the business, Cremecrop.com, were the focus of stories this week in The Record (N.J.) and The Jewish Standard.

Cremecrop.com, according to The Record, is different from its competitors because it promotes just one brand and model of each item it offers.

In other words, the website only sells the products that Schneider and his partner, Brian Welfel, deem the best.

The concept is to make shopping easier for customers by telling them what they need “in plain English,” the pair said.

It’s not easy; only offering only the, er, creme of the crop in a particular category, noted Schneider, requires extensive research on their part.

Why? “We stand by all of our products,” he said. “And we’re brutally honest.”

Even more remarkable about Cremecrop.com is that consumers aren’t the only ones who will benefit from it, reported The Jewish Standard.

Schneider and Welfel told the publication that they are planning to donate a portion of their profits to Save a Child’s Heart, an organization that provides heart surgery to children in developing and third world countries.

The idea to do so was Schneider’s. After visiting Israel the summer following his first year at college with the Colgate Jewish Union, he witnessed firsthand the impact Save a Child’s Heart has on young peoples’ lives.

“We got to visit [the group’s offices] and talk to the administrators, the kids who just had surgery, and the kids who were going to. It was really moving,” Schneider told the Standard.

He said that once he returned, all he could talk about was seeing the organization in action and how much he wanted to give.

Agreeing that Save a Child’s Heart is a great charity that can make a real difference, he and Welfel decided to give the group a percentage of their profits.

“Sometimes you donate to charities and you wonder what your money’s doing,” he explained. “But here you see a tangible difference — each $10,000 directly saves a child’s life.”

Also featured in the news this week was Joscelyn Godwin, professor of music and medieval and Renaissance studies.

Godwin was consulted by the Los Angeles Times for a story about fluctuations in the Dow Jones industrial average and the belief by some in possible connections to numbers found elsewhere, such as the architecture of Hindu temples.

Godwin is an expert musicologist, writer, and translator. He recently edited his son Ariel’s translation of Natural Architecture, a book published in 1949 in French and restricted to 252 copies for members of a secret society.

For more coverage of Colgate in the News, click here.