Toronto, Ontario, February 2, 2012. S.I.F.E. team members, Merina Johnston, Trevor Dufresne, and Rebecca Bax with Kate Armstrong from the St. Lawrence College School of Business at Kingston, presented the Foodbank project to the Economic Developers Council of Ontario (EDCO) at their 2012 conference. The initiatives that comprise of the Foodbank project will help to create a more efficient and economically viable Foodbank; propelling our community forward and drawing in economic development. It is with this that EDCO gave S.I.F.E. the opportunity to present, and presented the team with a cheque of $1,000.00 for future projects. Many thanks to Heather Lalonde from EDCO for giving us this opportunity.
EDCO is the largest provincial professional economic development association in Canada, EDCO represents almost 600 government, business and economic development professionals working in more than 175 communities across the province. Large companies looking to build new facilities often hire site selection consultants to help them decide where to invest. Economic development professionals work in a community to promote local investment strengths, such as workforce skills, efficient transport links or serviced land, to site selectors.
The Foodbank project is comprised of four initiatives that are designed to make the Kingston Partners in Mission Food sustainable. It started almost two years ago with retrofits to decrease operating costs. Since then we have installed 50 solar panels atop the roof of PIMF to create an independent stream of revenue. Currently, we are in the process of installing a commercial walk-in freezer to increase capacity and when completed we will move forward with the purchase of a hybrid freezer truck to increase efficiency.
Students in Free Enterprise at St. Lawrence College As a not for profit, student led organization, SIFE is committed to its mission to create sustainable solutions for its community. Currently, SIFE is tackling a number of issues, including financial literacy amongst high-school and college students, as well as at-risk youth. Recently, SIFE spearheaded a project to help Partners in Mission Food Bank acquire solar panels, a new furnace and retrofits to lower utility costs and create a sustainable form of income.
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.
St. Lawrence College Our educational philosophy is to work harder to put our studentsʼ interests at the forefront of everything we do. That means, for one thing, delivering relevant, in- demand courses supported by superior faculty and staff, state-of- the-art facilities (including safe and comfortable residences), and a wide variety of support services. The result of our efforts has been both reassuring and exciting for all of us at SLC. The collegeʼs overall approval rating for learning environment, quality of faculty, and excellence in graduate preparation is among the highest for community colleges in Ontario and testimony to our ability to consistently exceed expectations.
Due to student turnover, contact details become obsolete regularly. To ensure that your questions are answered, email the S.I.F.E. executive team at execteam@sifeslc.ca.
