SMU Enactus Reveals the Secret to their Triple Victory at Regionals
Written by Natasha Fernandes
@natasha_xxcc
Thumbnail and Header Photo by SMU Enactus
Saint Mary’s University is home to many flourishing and prosperous campus societies. Among the many, Enactus is a student initiative that is spread over 36 countries, working on over 5000 projects annually and impacting the lives of over 2 million people. From March 12th to March 19th, Enactus Canada had its Regional Exposition. Students from all over Canada showcased how their community outreach projects and business ventures are making a real impact in Canada and beyond through rounds of live presentation-based competitions. Business leaders served as judges to determine the final victor as Regional Champions. Next, the victor will continue to the final rounds of the competition held in the early weeks of May at the Enactus Canada National Exposition. In the Atlantic Region, SMU Enactus took the trophy home by winning all three categories they competed in during this year’s regional competition.
Photo by Madeline Bristol, Project Manager for Square Roots Bundle
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Madeline Bristol, the project manager for Square Roots Bundle and Hannah Tibbet, the co-president for SMU Enactus, to learn more about their secret behind their win and what makes Enactus so successful.
SMU Enactus currently has seven projects and approximately 15 project managers with five vice presidents. The biggest ongoing project is the Square Roots Bundle program, discussed below, managed by Madeline Bristol and Ameer Al-Eryani. The other projects under the SMU Enactus-Umbrella are Square Roots Token (Shaswat Duggal and Avantika Gupta), Square Roots Products (Kritika Gurung and Courtney Hulburt), Accessibility (Huy Bui), Options Nova (Jada Joseph and Michelle Goonaratne), Options Online (Urvi Patel and Sambridhi Trikhatri) and Livelysoft (Kaitlyn Creighan and Ahammed Hamza Monzoor). Although Square Roots Bundle is the focus of this article, these are all fantastic projects worth looking into.
The Square Roots Bundle project launched in November 2016 fights to reduce food insecurity, food deserts and food waste in Nova Scotia via a monthly, affordable, and healthy food bundle service. The food bundle costs $7 or $10 each and includes fruits and vegetables sourced locally. When the pandemic had just begun, a sudden drop in job security and securing accessible household needs became more difficult. As a result, the Square Roots Bundle initiative wanted to do its part to help ease the burden. When I asked Madeline about the struggles the program underwent while dealing with COVID-19, she said,
“It was tough to handle, not just the restrictions that came with COVID-19 but also trying to meet the ever-increasing demand from people who needed these cheaper fruits and vegetables. To combat this, we came up with a new donation model where we completely stopped selling the bundles but instead gave them away for free. So people could sign up online or with a project manager and get a free bundle. No questions asked. This ran from March 2020 to September 2020 with a free bundle drop every two weeks because of the high demand for affordable food. We now follow an integrated model that is a mixture of the donation model plus the regular model. People are free to choose to pay or receive one for free. The $3 profit earned from selling the $10 bundles provides the free bundles for those in need. The amount of vegetables that we have managed to divert from landfills has tripled since previous years. It is insane how much food we have managed to give away and save from being wasted. The more we give, the more families we feed and people are not hungry anymore. COVID-19 brought us a lot of output that made us look for new methods from which we can balance the input and output effectively.”
It was interesting to hear that despite restaurants closing down, they still managed to adapt to the increased demand through their improved donation model. With the help of many generous donations, the program could afford to give away bundles for free as needed.
The Regionals have three categories: Climate Change (sponsored by Scotia Bank), Entrepreneurship (sponsored by TD) and Financial Literacy (sponsored by CWB). Madeline’s Square Roots Bundle project was presented under both the Climate Change and Entrepreneurship categories. According to Madeline, what set their project apart from the rest was that they could continue with business as usual despite COVID-19 restrictions. As Madeline said,
“I do not blame them, it is not their fault at all, but the other Enactus teams had to take a break. On the other hand, we (SMU Enactus) have such a great team with so many volunteers and resources at our disposal. The other teams did not have this advantage or the resources they needed right away. The biggest reason for our wins was because we were so fast in starting our operations. Even for the Financial Literacy category, we had Options Nova which received almost $800,000 in funding from the government of Canada to launch an online platform (Options Online), and this was even before COVID-19. No team could beat that achievement.”
Madeline went into detail about each category and how their projects were governed and represented. For the Climate Change category, the Square Roots project presented how they managed to triple their output within a year. In 2019-2020, the project diverted about 50,000 pounds of food from entering a landfill, but this year they managed to shift more than 175,000 pounds of food. The Square Roots project has been running for four years, but since last year it has increased in high scale magnitude with food sustainability, which was a crucial point in their presentation for the Regional competition.
In the Entrepreneurship category, SMU Enactus highlighted that the Square Roots project has seven locations across Nova Scotia (plus two new areas since January - Masstown and Windsor NS). Last year, they launched a site in Ireland (which is currently closed because of the pandemic) and another in Zimbabwe. They have also been in contact with another Enactus team in Manitoba to open another Square Roots branch. When speaking about the partnership with Zimbabwe’s Enactus team and how they are one of the branches of the Square Roots project, Madeline said,
“...we provide them with a Square Roots program to work on just in the same way we do it. They can expand their project and talk about it in their competitions, but they just give us credit as we helped them launch it. That’s how it works. And we don’t make any profit from this. That was the biggest confusion in Zimbabwe because they asked us: okay, how much do we pay you for every dollar made? We told them that we do not want any money from this, we just want our project to grow and people around the world to be fed and to reduce the food waste problem, which is a global issue.”
Hannah Tibbet, the Co-Vice President of SMU Enactus, mentioned one of the reasons this society can do so much at once is because of the massive team effort. Because there are so many projects, this society had to be selective about which ones entered the competition. Adam Khamis (Co-Vice President of SMU Enactus), Hannah Tibbet, and a few other advisors had a tryouts period before Regionals, where members could submit their proposals for the challenge in each category. If selected, these projects would be a part of “The challenge team” that presented at the Regional competition.
When I asked Hannah Tibbet, who has worked with Enactus for three years now, about why she thinks SMU Enactus had a sweeping win for the Regional competition, she said,
“Every single member of our team is the reason we could do it. I will try not to be too intense here, but we have been listed as one of the top five teams in Canada for the past ten years, so we are hoping that in a month you will be able to write another article on us where we won the National competition and became the best team in Canada. We are trying to be extremely positive.”
Given the success of their projects and collaborations, I do not think that dream is too far off. They are constantly innovating and collaborating. For example, SMU Enactus’ latest partnership with Little Branches has created a new Square Roots Product: Waste-free matcha lotion bars. They are an all-natural product with avocado waste-infused oils, which is fantastic for the skin but even better for the environment. I had the chance to have a quick chat with Lisa Hurlburt, who is the CEO of Little Branches, to ask her about her experience with SMU Enactus and how it has helped grow her business, to which she said,
“My experience working with Enactus was wonderful; they all supported me and my little idea. It was a pleasure talking with them, getting ideas and hearing their feedback. They also listened to my thoughts and ideas and gave me lots of encouragement. They were very helpful in helping me get started.”
To purchase environmentally friendly, homemade, natural and sustainable soaps, you can complete the Matcha Lotion Bars Purchase Form. Each bar is packed with natural ingredients to help nourish and replenish dry skin and is just $5 each. They even deliver! SMU Enactus has demonstrated constant innovation and creativity with its projects. With this amount of success, joining this society may come off as intimidating. When I asked Hannah what her view on this was, she said,
“I know it can feel a little intimidating, but we always say Enactus is a great place to come and learn, a great place to come and succeed but most importantly, a great place to come and fail. We have all had times where we have messed up. SMU Enactus is a very low-pressure, safe, happy environment where we just want to support you in doing your best. It is the best thing you can do for your university experience. It gives you the advantage to apply the knowledge that you have learned through projects into the real world.”
Being a part of such a vibrant society like Enactus SMU can work wonders and help in expanding your network far and wide. I wish the Enactus team at SMU all the very best for the upcoming Nationals (which will begin on May 7th and end on May 20th). I hope Hannah’s wish comes true, and I can interview them again to reveal their secret behind being the Best Enactus Team in Canada. Bonne Chance!
P.S: If you are a member or an executive of a campus society at Saint Mary’s and would like to feature in the SMU Journal, you can email me at fernnash15@gmail.com. I want to know more about your experience with societies here at SMU, so please reach out!