Roberts Wesleyan SIFE team wins regional competition

The Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) from Roberts Wesleyan College were winners in the regional SIFE competition April 7 in Hartford, Connecticut.

After presenting a report of their year-long community outreach projects to a panel of business leaders, the Roberts Wesleyan SIFE team was named a SIFE USA Regional Champion in the overall competition and finalists in four other categories: free market economics, entrepreneurship, personal financial success skills, and business ethics.

The Roberts team now advances to national competition at the SIFE USA National Exposition May 22-24 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Students presenting were: Meg MacKay of Ontario, Canada; Jamarr Meyers of Brockport; SIFE President Alissa Fox of Greece; Jesse Wilson of Adams; Benjamin Hollamby of Olean and David Goodfellow of Rochester. The technical team comprised Darryl Marshall, Paul Owens and David Bussy of Rochester, Dan Thall of Brookfield, Joel Ashcraft of Suffern and Lindsay Papa of Greece, were understudy members of the presentation team.

Roberts' winning projects included BIZ World (educating students at Fairbanks Road Elementary School about business ethics); the Journey Project and the Women of Hope and Men of Standard Business Camps (teaching business principles to students at Franklin's Global Media Arts School); the Student Endowment Investment Project (investing $25,000 of the Roberts Wesleyan College endowment); the International Fair, a joint project with Roberts' Celebration of Diversity Club; the Hagar Project; Retain the Brains; and international projects in Romania, Guatemala and India.

"There were so many projects, it's hard to single any out," said Chris Lendway, experiential learning coordinator for Roberts' undergraduate business program. "The students truly are 'changing the world' as SIFE's motto states. They also have collaborated with other SIFE teams this past year, including John Brown University (Siloam Springs, Arkansas) on the Guatemala project and Regent University (Virginia Beach, Virginia) on teaching Roberts Wesleyan College students the importance of managing their credit and using credit cards wisely."