Theng Xiong (left) delivers vegetables direct from his family’s farm to college employees signed up for the pioneering campus CSA program. In June deliveries: lettuce, spinach, coriander, mint, green onions, baby carrots, beets, kohlrabi and rhubarb – all fresh as it comes.

Enactus Brings Farmers’ Market to Knights on the Fox

Music lovers attending a Knights on the Fox series concert this summer will be able to buy some fresh veggies before catching the performance, thanks to the efforts of Enactus.

Enactus, a business-focused student organization, partnered with local farmers to bring produce stands to the free Tuesday night outdoor concert series. Before each of the five concerts, which begin July 9 and run through Aug. 6, a mini farmers’ market will be set up just outside the concert area, featuring produce grown by three or four local Hmong farmers.
 
Bringing a farmers’ market to a St. Norbert concert site fits in with Enactus’ mission of connecting St. Norbert students with the community through entrepreneurial means: more specifically, through actions geared at improving the lives of others and which, ideally, foster sustainability.
 
In a similar effort, Enactus is working with a local Community Supporting Agriculture (CSA) organization to create a program on campus, allowing college faculty and staff an easy way to purchase produce from local farmers. CSA pre-purchase plans guarantee farmers income while giving their customers locally grown fresh food.
 
“I am very proud of my teammates and how far we have come in year one of this project,” says Ryan Engesser ’15, Enactus project leader and vice president/director of international expansion and project development. “We can’t wait to continue working with the farmers in the upcoming year so we can see the potential of this project. We have big plans.”
 
But Enactus isn’t simply focused on helping those in the local community. The group hosts yearly mission trips and has visited Houston and Nashville to help communities address issues of homelessness and hunger. Enactus also runs workshops on résumé building, mock interviews, healthy living and financial literacy. 

Says Engesser, “We want to empower those in our community by teaching them strategies we’ve learned in the classroom and help them apply it in the real world, so that they can make a sustainable difference.” 


July 2, 2013