Written by Kritika Gurung

@issasaltier

Photo by Adam Khamis

Enactus is a global platform where students take entrepreneurial actions for others to create a better world for us all. Enactus students are spread across 36 countries, working on nearly 5000 projects annually that impact the lives of almost 2 million people. These projects tackle economic, social, and environmental issues with innovative designs and diverse initiatives to improve the lives of the people living in the real world. In Canada, over 3000 students, from 70 campuses in all the ten provinces, are a part of Enactus. In Saint Mary's University, Enactus has been an active organization with four significant projects functioning under the brilliance of the diverse student body.

I had the opportunity to meet up with Adam Khamis, the Co-Project Manager for the Square Roots Token Program, one of the four significant projects, for a small interview session.

Q: What is the Square Roots Token Program?

A: The Square Roots Token Program was launched in March 2017 as a social enterprise created by Saint Mary's University Enactus students to be the bridge that connects restaurants with extra food to community members looking for a meal.

Q: What is the mission of the Square Roots Token Program? How is the task being executed?

A: The Token Program's mission is to reduce food waste in restaurants. This Program will work with participating restaurants to ensure that any edible food never unnecessarily reaches a landfill site. Token Program gives restaurants the tools to make cost-effective and socially responsible decisions. The purpose of this social enterprise is to tackle food waste with food insecurity. By providing participating restaurants with the option to sell their extra food to community members looking for affordable food options; together, we can end the unnecessary food waste and food insecurity our community faces.

Q: Where are the Token sales located from which people can purchase them?

A: Our current sales locations include the SMUSA Info Desk, Entrepreneurship Centre, Ascension Hair Salon DAL, Magic Touch Hair Salon, and our future locations in Dartmouth are coming soon.

Q: Since the launching of the Program, how many restaurants have been in participation with the Program?

A: With its launch in March 2017, the Square Roots Token Program is pleased to have on-boarded ten participating restaurants by November 2017. King of Donair, Lemon Tree Restaurant, Xtreme Pizza, Halal Basha, Tony's Pizza, and Chef Abod are six of the ten restaurants who have been in participation with the Program.

Q: A well-grounded team could only operate such an influential program. Can you please tell us about your team?

A: Two Project Managers are currently leading the Token Program, (me) Adam Khamis, a 3rd-year CISY Major at SMU and Salma Maisha, who is a 2nd year Commerce Major at SMU as well. We set goals and push the Program in the direction it must go to succeed with the help of our Enactus Presidents Leena Roy Chowdhury and Bethany Rippol. We regularly delegate tasks, promote the social enterprise at different events, engage the restaurant owners and community and, of course, support our executive team as much as possible. With 12 executive members from various programs in SMU, some in Science, Computing, and Commerce programs, it is quite a large, diverse team. We manage to operate efficiently in the unfortunate case of someone not being able to help, [due] to us being such a sizeable group.

Q: What are the recent developments that are taking place within the Program?

A: Currently, the Token Program hopes to keep expanding into the Dartmouth and Bedford region to reach more food deserts. We also hope to partner with other Enactus Chapters around Canada to bring the Program to their hometowns. We are coordinating opening a new Token Hub in Medicine Hat Alberta, with the assistance of Medicine Hat Enactus Alberta.

Q: Money nowadays is rarely used in its physical form. Most of the market exchanges take place through either bank cards or online purchases. How do you make your Program accessible in such cases?

A: We are developing an application that will completely phase out the physical tokens and allow customers to purchase the tokens online and redeem them at restaurants through their phones. We hope to launch the initial stage of the application in March to enable us to access our student customers easily. While the physical tokens will remain in circulation for those unable to access the internet, and for donation purposes.

Q: What difficulties did you overcome while establishing the Program?

A: One of the most significant issues we had while establishing the Program was getting restaurants to participate in the Program, especially since some restaurants do not pre-cook their food. We were able to target a significant number of restaurants who pre-cooked their meals like Mediterranean, Indian, and Chinese restaurants, along with some Pizza parlours. This issue is still an ongoing challenge, but we do firmly believe that we will get a lot more of the restaurants to participate in the Program. Another significant issue was to get people to redeem their tokens. Yes, we were able to sell the tokens, but it was a bit more challenging to get people to go to the restaurants and redeem their tokens; for the Program to have the full desired effect. Our new marketing team has set new goals for us to overcome this challenge in the coming months.

Q: What is the future for the Square Roots Token Program?

A: In March, Enactus SMU will be participating in the Enactus Regional Competition held at the Halifax Convention Centre, where a panel of judges will evaluate our project. We will be competing against other East Coast Canadian school's Enactus Teams, to reach the National Stage in Toronto. The Enactus Competition fosters the competitive spirit amongst us, but we also get to step back and watch just how impactful our projects are on the communities around our schools and beyond.

Square Roots Token Program: A Two-Tiered Project by Enactus

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