Enactus STU carries on alumni legacy

Enactus STU won Campus Administration of the Year last May 2024 in Toronto. (Credit: STU Communications)

While St. Thomas University offers a variety of student clubs, Enactus STU stands out on a national level. 

As a branch of the international Enactus organization, the club's goal is to support student leadership and entrepreneurship to make a positive social, economic and environmental change. 

Each year, Enactus STU competes with teams across Canada in displaying their impact, with their two current community impact projects being “Spring Up Fredericton” and “Spark.” 

The club has empowered many of its current members and alumni during its years of community impact, regional wins and runner-ups.

Ameri Suzuki, STU alumna from Japan, joined Enactus in her first year at STU as a general member after a friend invited her. As time went on, she became more interested in the club’s vision and goals and became Enactus’ external co-president in 2022.

“I started seeing it as an opportunity for me to learn how students here in Canada were trying to tackle economic, political and social issues compared to how it was back home in Japan.”

During the 2022 academic year, Kate Haché, current Enactus president, joined as a general member. 

The team saw the Spring Up Fredericton project earn third place at the Atlantic Canada Regional Exposition in Halifax. The project focuses on sustainability through initiatives like clothing drives and clean-up walks. 

Suzuki returned to her co-president external position for her third year “with better knowledge and experience,” before becoming the sole president of Enactus in her fourth year at STU. 

This was the same year that the previous executive had already graduated, with newcomers joining the team.

“I had more control over decision-making,” said Suzuki. “But at the same time, there were some times where I found it hard for me to train everyone from scratch, because I was the only one who was formerly within Enactus.”

The Spark team presented its project at the Enactus Canada Atlantic Regional Exposition last February. (Fernanda Sanchez/AQ)

Enactus’ newer project, Spark, was the result of the merging of old projects Incubatorly and Connecto. 

Incubatorly supported local businesses through pop-up events, while Connecto focused on improving financial literacy among New Brunswick youth — goals that Spark now combines.

After Suzuki worked with the executive to create Spark, Haché said she and grad Ellie Namit took the reins as project managers for the 2023–24 academic year.

Namit and Haché organized business fairs and financial literacy workshops, going on to partner with the St. Thomas University Students’ Union to help reduce the cost of the Community Food Smart initiative, which provided nutritious food bags to STU students at an affordable price.

“We did some research and found that New Brunswick has … scored really low on financial literacy,” said Haché. “We scored really low on food security and we noticed that these two things are super connected, especially in the student context.”

Because of this, Spark partnered with the STU Food Bank and organizations such as Ignite to advance its three core goals: improving financial literacy, financial empowerment and food security.

Atlantic Business Magazine interviewed Namit and Haché, resulting in them winning a $2,500 business accelerator to continue their work. 

Being the two hands running the project,  the two students also co-presented the project at the 2023-24 regional championships in Halifax.

In a historic move, Spark won first place in the Desjardins Youth Empowerment Challenge.

“When we went to regionals, we did not expect to win anything,” said Haché. “We were a brand new project. We really just wanted the experience of seeing how this all plays out. So when they announced that we won regionals, Ellie and I started crying, because we had put a lot of work into this project.”

Spark’s journey continued with a placement as second runner-up at the 2024-25 Desjardins Youth Empowerment Challenge, later winning first place in the Jeanne Sauvé Global Project Accelerator Challenge at Enactus Nationals.

“This award at Nationals was really a cumulative effort of multiple years in the making,” said Haché. “Spark’s win meant a lot to us because it showed us that as a small team at a small university, we can make a huge impact and that is all our project attempts to do.”

While Harshene Kaur was touring STU for the first time before the 2024-25 academic year, her campus tour ambassador informed her of the existence of Enactus upon learning that she was involved in a financial literacy club at her high school. 

Kaur began as a project manager in Enactus right away, leading to her being elected to her current position as VP of projects in her second year at STU. 

Though she started out involved with Spark, she transitioned to keeping track of the donations at the Spring Up Fredericton bi-weekly clothing drive. She also co-presented a workshop on the dangers of fast fashion.

“We looked at clothes that we got from fast fashion brands like Levi’s, Old Navy … did some research on it and presented the human rights concerns that those companies stand for in an attempt to educate the students.”

Having since graduated from STU with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and moved back to her home country, Japan, Suzuki is currently working as an accounting assistant. She is considering pursuing grad school to obtain further education in economics.

“My involvement in Enactus gave me hands-on experience on economic development … it made me more passionate about leveraging economics and accounting as tools to empower marginalized communities.”

Namit is currently pursuing their Master of Human Rights degree at the University of Manitoba, where they have founded an Enactus club, which is currently focusing on two projects. 

The first is focused on promoting mental health in teenagers through a social media campaign and a themed video game, with the other involving the recycling of old clothes and electronics into self-warming clothing.

“Part of the draw for me when it came to starting Enactus at UM was that I would have more access to things like engineering students and chemistry students … I think STU really thrives on the social aspect of Enactus. I was hoping to do a bit more of the technological innovation side when I got here,” said Namit.

After graduation, Haché plans to pursue further education to prepare herself for a career in policy development and economics.

“Enactus has given me the ability to perform confidently and to apply so many things that I’ve learned to my post-graduation plans,” said Haché.