CNA SIFE teams excel at regional competition
3/17/2011 3:53:04 PM
Two Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) teams from College of the North Atlantic (CNA) came away winners at the Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE) regional competition in Halifax recently.
The Stephenville (Bay St. George campus) team placed second in the Entrepreneurship Challenge, while the team from Grand Falls-Windsor campus was named the 2011 SIFE Financial Education Challenge Regional Champion by the national charitable organization.
Sheldon Boone and Megan Hoskins are co-presidents of the Grand Falls-Windsor team.
“Empowerment has been a key focus for the SIFE Grand Falls-Windsor team for the past six years”, explains Boone, of Grand Falls-Windsor. “Through our financial education focused projects, we are proud to deliver solid solutions to produce proactive participants who are now more financially aware and responsible.”
“It was so rewarding because we were able to help students in our own community,” says Hoskins, of Bishop’s Falls. “It’s important to learn about these things, and our team finds it really rewarding to be an example for these kids.”
SIFE is a team-based program that encourages post secondary students to address relevant economic, social and environmental issues by empowering others to improve their quality of life and standard of living.
Student teams from across Atlantic Canada showcased their financial education-focused projects to panels of industry professionals on March 11, 2011.
The SIFE team from the Grand Falls-Windsor campus stood out to the judges because of their dedication to creating financial education programs that provide knowledge and guidance to elementary and high school students.
Two of the team’s financial education-focused projects were Piggy Bank and Solution Revolution; both include topics such as budgeting, money management, applying to post-secondary educational institutions, and job interviews. The Piggy Bank program has increased financial management practice by 86 per cent on average through useful tools such as personal budgets. Solution Revolution has produced the first graduates including a scholarship recipient who is now attending post-secondary on a solid financial foundation.
“I am so proud of our SIFE teams’ success. This speaks volumes to the students’ commitment to building better communities,” says Mary Vaughan, Dean of Business and Information Technology at CNA. “It is also a good representation of their entrepreneurial spirit and learning, and the quality of our programs and dedicated faculty that help guide and support them.”
“With over 26,000 community participants impacted by SIFE team financial education projects across Canada last year, we are proud to continue this national challenge that effectively provides others with the skills to make informed and positive financial decisions”, explains Amy Harder, ACE President. “Through our SIFE team’s accomplishments, ACE is ensuring the future of our country is in good hands - today and tomorrow.”
The end goal of this annual challenge is for SIFE teams to help improve the ability of others, in their community, to make informed and positive financial decisions. Teams have been provided the necessary tools and training from ACE to develop and implement their extensive projects. The CNA - Grand Falls-Windsor SIFE team will now move on to the national level of competition taking place on May 10 at the 2011 ACE National Exposition in Toronto, ON.
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About ACE:
ACE is a national, charitable organization that is teaching and igniting young Canadians to create brighter futures for themselves and their communities. ACE delivers a team-based program called Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) and an individual-based program, Student Entrepreneur. ACE students created 540 jobs, logged 273,000 volunteer hours and directly impacted 114,000 people in the past year alone. In the past three years, students have generated over $80,000,000 in economic opportunity. ACE is currently established on over 55 post-secondary campuses across Canada.
Media Contact:
Gina MacArthur
Public Information Officer
College of the North Atlantic
Ph: 709-643-7928
gina.macarthur@cna.nl.ca
Jaime Szegvary
Communications Consultant, ACE
Ph: 416-619-8994
jaime@acecanada.ca