The UMKC Enactus team has wrapped up another year of high national honors and high local – and global – impact.
Enactus is a global organization for college students who volunteer to develop projects that create positive change through entrepreneurial action. UMKC Enactus placed among the top eight teams in the country during April’s National Expo at Long Island University in New York and garnered multiple individual awards as well.
It’s familiar territory; the UMKC team has placed in the top 10 nationally for four consecutive years and consistently wins top individual awards as well. The competition result was earned through student projects that have produced meaningful results from Kansas City to Mexico to Nigeria.
On campus, Enactus was named Student Organization of the Year at the UMKC Student Organization and University Leadership (SOUL) Awards. While the team is headquartered at the Henry W. Bloch School of Management, it draws students from multiple majors and academic programs across campus, an example of how UMKC emphasizes entrepreneurship and innovation campus-wide.
The team’s projects included:
- FeedKC, which connects local food vendors to local food banks, directing leftover food to people instead of landfills. Students developed the FeedKC Web App – feed-kc.com – connecting businesses and soup kitchens directly to eliminate the need for a middleman.
- Fashionnovation, an initiative to reduce the environmental effects of fast fashion; 85% of clothing ends up in landfills. The initiative reduces fashion waste by repurposing used clothing into commercial products.
- Generation Green, a project dedicated to repurposing plastic waste and encouraging interactive learning by recycling plastic into colorful, durable dry-erase boards. The boards are welcomed by local teachers as replacements for school supplies that are frequently broken, while preventing new plastic production and reducing waste.
- Cultura En Tus Manos, an initiative for artisans in Oaxaca, Mexico, who depended on street sales of their crafts to tourists but were left without a market because of the COVID pandemic. Enactus created an online marketplace for them and a training module to learn to use it.
- Project AIR (Achieve Inspire Rise), an initiative to provide post-high school training in resume-building, how to apply for jobs and other professional development skills to young people living in underserved Kansas City communities.
- Educate to Elevate, an initiative that raised tens of thousands of dollars to build a well, bathrooms and a new classroom building for the Ogwuokwu Community School in Ogwuokwu, Nigeria. Incidence of water-borne illnesses dropped dramatically after the project was completed.
Several students received individual honors at the National Expo. Club President Hannah Case won the top Jules and Gwen Knapp Scholarship of $10,000. Students Sophia Ho and Aaron Winter won $3,000 scholarships. Drew Childs – who won the $10,000 Knapp scholarship last year – was named national project leader of the year. Ellyssa Gallinger was named national finance leader of the year.