Photos by Anne W. Anderson
or courtesy of Yolanda Carter
The Enactus team of (l-r) Yolanda Carter '17, Dorie Michalik '16, Professor Naveen Malhotra (advisor), Tonya Zalick '18, and Andi Gordon '16 celebrate their regional victory.
They wrote grants, developed marketing plans and tools, provided innovative programs at a number of local non-profit organizations, produced reports, and created a video presentation which they entered in the regional level of a nationwide competition judged by business representatives from major corporations. Now, having been named regional champions, Carter, Zalick, and Gordon are headed to the Enactus United States National Competition in St. Louis, Mo., on May 16-18. Dorie Michalik is unable to attend.
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| Dorie Michalik and Yolanda Carter work on the Powerpoint presentation. |
"We assisted our partner with making contact with potential audience members, looking for locations to present, and so on," Tonya Zalick wrote in an email interview. Zalick will be the Eckerd Enactus chapter president for the 2016-2017 academic year.
After the course ended, Malhotra offered interested students the opportunity to be part of an extra-curricular activity that involved putting together a presentation about the projects and presenting it, virtually, at the Enactus Regional Competition in April.
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| One of many planning sessions involved in preparing the entry. |
Trophies and other awards--including the key to the City of St. Petersburg--line his office, but the excitement in his voice as he talks about the projects students have completed suggests Malhotra's motivation for encouraging his students to participate is not winning trophies but watching PEL students discover ways they can use the business skills they are honing to help the larger community.
"And they do the work in eight weeks, then prepare their presentations during the next eight weeks," Malhotra said. "Other teams work all year on their projects and presentations."
Carter, Gordon, Michalik, and Zalick volunteered. They reviewed the eight projects that had been completed in the course, selected four to showcase in an annual report, and then began preparing their entry.
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| Materials Andi Gordon created for Pinellas Hope. |
Volunteer judges are professionals working for major corporations. They assess each team's effectiveness in seeing opportunity (including conducting a needs assessment), taking entrepreneurial action, and enabling progress by measuring direct and indirect outcomes that empower people and improve livelihoods in a sustainable way. Teams also receive feedback on their ability to communicate their projects and the results.
This year, communicating took a virtual turn. Recognizing that travel costs prohibited some teams from participating, the organization created a virtual regional in addition to regionals held in six cities across the continental United States. But it meant that, in addition to creating a Powerpoint presentation, the team also had to find a way to film the presentation.
Andi Gordon said it was a challenge. "Preparing a presentation with multiple content areas/speakers is almost always a major undertaking," Gordon wrote in an email interview. "But when you add the element of filming, editing, synchronizing with Powerpoint, and the expanded technology needs, the focus can shift from the content of your presentation to just delivering a usable "package.'"
Dorie Michalik noted she is used to moving around as she presents to a live audience. "Having to stand in one place as the team's presentation was videotaped was a challenge for me personally," she wrote in an email interview.
The team met most Wednesday evenings during Spring 2 to work on the project. Towards the end, however, other meetings were added. The night before the filming, the group worked until midnight then were back on campus for an early-morning camera date.
"It was a lot of hours," Gordon wrote.
PEL Enactus projects
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| Yolanda Carter helps install a community garden at CASA. |
CASA (Community Action Stops Abuse): Yolanda Carter obtained a $1,500 Partnership Workforce Development grant from WalMart's Women's Economic Empowerment Project to create materials for two workshops (employment readiness training and money management skills), which she termed EMPOWER (Encourage, Motivate, Prepare & Organize Women's Economic Readiness) workshops, presented to CASA clients. She also used funds to create a community garden that CASA clients will maintain to provide fresh produce to the residents.
Community Leveraged Learning (CLL): Dorie Michalik presented fellow SIFE student Lori Pinkerton's project, as Lori was not able to commit to the extra hours involved. Lori built a website for Community Leveraged Learning, an organization that provides writing workshops for children and for teachers. In addition to teaching writing skills, CLL also publishes finished work, validating children's creativity and helping teachers produce thematic units they can use in their classrooms.
Pinellas Hope: A project of the Diocese of St. Petersburg and Catholic Charities, Pinellas Hope is replacing the "tent city" created to shelter people without homes with modular units made of shipping crates. Andi Gordon created marketing materials, including a multi-page case statement for the organization's funding initiative, for the dedication of Phase 2 of the project. She created the materials using templates that Pinellas Hope can reuse for future events and developed a media engagement plan including press release guidelines and timelines.
Re-emerge at Westminster Palms: Ten residents at Westminster Palms, a St. Petersburg retirement community, had been taking art classes from an instructor who came to the center each week and some were displaying their work in the lobbies of the buildings. Tonya Zalick, who works at Westminster Palms, felt the community was missing out on seeing the residents' works, and she knew residents were equally isolated from the larger art community in the area. Ekcerd Enactus coordinated with organizers of the Saturday Art Walk in Gulfport to allow the senior artists to re-emerge by showing their art at the public event. They also created a network of restaurant and shop owners interested in having individual artists display their work.
Takeaways, Tips, and Testimonials
All four team members agreed the project took a lot of time and stretched their skills.
"This is not something you can do well with little effort," Michalik cautioned. "Make sure you have the time and ability to give the project and the competition your all."
But each member also said the time was well spent.
"The best experience was the responses from the women who appreciated the information we provided during the workshops as well as the residents' reactions to the garden boxes being finished," Carter wrote.
Zalick agreed. "The best moment was seeing the faces of the [Re-emerge artists] when complete and total strangers offered to buy their artwork," she wrote. "They did not think that their paintings were of any value to anyone, and for them to see that they touched other people was eye-opening to them."
Zalick also said she is more aware now of the needs in the community and also of "the many, many organizations, people and groups who are doing what they can to make a difference in the lives of others."
Representatives of some of the communities helped said the short-term projects left a lasting impact.
Louis Ricardo, Catholic Charities' marketing and development manager, noted that Gordon did more than just provide detailed marketing materials.
"She was simply an excellent sounding board for me in general as I am new to both Pinellas County and the non-profit industry," Ricardo wrote, adding that he looked forward to working with her in the future.
Westminster Palms resident David Dumin said in a telephone interview that he didn't plan to pursue marketing his artwork. "But it was nice to watch the people enjoying our work," he said of the Art Walk event. "And I know others in the group are interested in being more involved."
Trace Taylor, founder and CEO of Community Leveraged Learning, said the website built by Enactus has helped CLL to present itself more professionally, which is important as they begin to provide teacher training to local schools and to apply for grants.
"They saved us, is what they did," Taylor said.
In addition to being PEL students and participating in Enactus, the team members each work full time. Yolanda Carter recently accepted a position in the Center for Conflict Dynamics and Mediation Training Institute at Eckerd College; Andi Gordon is the St. Petersburg Retail Advertising Manager for the Tampa Bay Times; Dorie Michalick is the Assistant Director of Product Management for the Center for Conflict Dynamics and Mediation Training Institute at Eckerd College; and Tonya Zalick works at Westminster Palms, a Continued Care Retirement Community in St. Petersburg.
Anne W. Anderson is PEL's director of blended and online learning.
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