Free enterprise club hosts call out

IU’s Students in Free Enterprise team will be holding a mass call-out meeting Sept. 12 for all students interested in joining \nthe organization.\nSIFE works with businesses and higher education officials to provide service-learning opportunities for students to develop leadership and communication skills by learning and practicing free \nenterprise practices.\nIn May, IU’s SIFE team came in second runner-up in their league at the SIFE USA National Championship. After presenting their projects to a panel of business leaders, they were placed among the top six percent of SIFE teams in the country, according to the press release.\nJunior and SIFE president Anne Cornett said the national competition was a good experience. She said Bloomington’s team had a chance to compete with some of the top SIFE teams in the country. She said some of the SIFE teams in the competition have been around for four or five years. This was the first time IU’s SIFE team has participated in the championship.\n“We’re definitely the newbie of the group,” she said. “It’s interesting to see where we can go.”\nCornett said SIFE has a ton of brand new projects for the upcoming year. She said some of the new projects will focus on educating kids in economics and working with disabled veterans. Cornett said SIFE will also work with local businesses in Bloomington and possibly one in Chicago.\nSIFE will also be continuing projects from previous years. Some of these projects include working with Fair Trade Bloomington and Travelin’ T, a SIFE PowerPoint presentation that teaches grade school students about free market economies by following a T-shirt to various countries as it is being produced, according to the \nnews release.\nSenior Leela Summers, marketing director for the team said that while working with SIFE, she was able to use her personal skills and interests to make an impact within Bloomington. She said she worked on the Fair Trade Bloomington project and said she feels her work through community sales is able to help people in less developed countries all around \nthe world.\n“I joined SIFE because I felt that as a student with a lot of free time I wanted to be able to do something that would not only help me grow personally, but do something positive in the world,” she said. “It is a very rewarding feeling to know that what I have done during my four years at Indiana University will pay off to others.” \n Mary Embry, SIFE’s faculty adviser, said she hopes the group will commit themselves to pushing their capabilities this year.\n“I also hope all members explore the power of their education and their ability to influence progress and change with it.”\nEmbry said over the four years SIFE has been an incredible organization to work with. She said she has been so impressed by how students become more and more capable to stick with the group over their time on campus.\nCornett said the team currently has about 50 members and is hoping to get approximately 50 students to attend the call-out meeting. She said the group aims to get a lot of students from the freshman and sophomore classes but hopes juniors and seniors will consider joining as well.\nThe call-out meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 12 in Ballantine Hall, Room 204.