Ouachita Stories

Ouachita Baptist University’s Enactus team was named champion at its annual regional competition recently in Dallas, Texas. The team will compete May 21-23 at the Enactus National Exposition in Kansas City, Kan. The competition includes five leagues with seven teams each that compete against each other. The top four teams in each league move on to nationals. The teams prepare a script and video and select a team of students to present.

“Throughout the year we push ourselves to create the best solutions to problems that we encounter and make sure that we document everything along the way,” said OBU Enactus President Alexandra Lawson, a senior accounting major from Texarkana, Texas.

Enactus is an international nonprofit organization with more than 69,000 members in 36 countries. It seeks to inspire university students to improve the world through entrepreneurial action. Members create community development projects throughout the year and present them at the annual regional and national competitions. The national champion teams advance to the Enactus World Cup competition Sept. 26-28 in the United Kingdom.

“Enactus is an outlet for young business minds and other creative individuals to use their gifts to help others in need,” said Victoria White, a junior accounting major from Powderly, Texas. “It allows students to utilize their skills and give back to others before they enter the workforce.” White was founder and project leader for two new OBU Enactus projects, Mission 58:10 and SOS Commission.

OBU’s Enactus team presented several projects at the regional competition: Mission 58:10, SOS Commission, Arkadelphia Promise and Dr. Jack’s Coffee. Mission 58:10 is a project that takes a localized approach to eliminate Arkadelphia’s food insecurity rate, which is estimated to be over 20 percent. Students Offering Solutions (SOS) Commission is a group of professors and students who meet with a business professional interested in talking to young business minds about a problem or goal. Through Arkadelphia Promise, the team helped high school students complete the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) to increase the college-going rate in the community. Dr. Jack’s Coffee, a coffee company that gives a third of its profit to different orphanages around the world, has been growing and merged with Leivas Coffee last year to form one company.

“My favorite part about Enactus is directly helping people and entire communities with the work that we do,” said OBU Enactus Vice President Estefanie Perez, a senior business and mass communications major from Maracaibo, Venezuela. “It’s pretty incredible to think that a group of students from a small school can have such a big positive impact in people’s lives in the community and across the world.”

For more information, contact Ouachita’s Hickingbotham School of Business at (870) 245-5250.

 

By Sarah Davis

May 9, 2017