Grand Prize Winner – Sephali Pokharel

2^nd Place Winner – Kim Boom

3^rd Place Winner – Magali Beleng

These three winners, along with our other Cards Across Culture Contest entrants, contributed almost $400 to the team’s grand total of over $1,500!!! Way to go team! Be sure to congratulate each of these dedicated members when you see them!

Sephali Pokharel – Grand Prize Winner. Freshman. Sephali sold 14 boxes of cards! She has won the coveted $100 grand prize.

Kim Boom – 2nd Place. Graduate student. Kim has managed to sell a total of 12 boxes of cards! She has won a delicious box of extra buttery popcorn.

Magali Beleng – 3rd Place. Freshman. Magali sold 8 boxes of cards! She has won some lovely coconut scented body wash.

Two clubs participated in this event organized by SIFE and the Student Association. The Black Student Union (BSU), Wellness and Human Performance club(WHP)  and the Radio/TV club/National Broadcasting Society (NBS) collected non-perishable items during the month of February. Together they collected 350 pounds for the Marshall Food Shelf!

The NBS won the competition of collected items and receive the grand prize of 160 dollars. We also want to thank the BSU and WHP clubs for participating.

On Saturday February 26^th we collected items at the last Basketball games of the season which also was Senior’s Night. Thank you, SMSU Athletic Department, for helping out with advertisement and donations.

Thank you to all our members, partners, and supporters we currently have collected and donated 1,907 pounds!

Up Coming Events:

• March 19^th: food collection HyVee and County Fair Food Store
• April 2^nd: door-to-door

Because of our great community and friendly neighbors we are much closer to making this project a success. We sold $500 worth of Cards Across Culture Cards and collected 360 pounds of food. We want to continue this effort and will set up another Door to Door event next month!

This week’s winner of the Card Selling Competition is Sephali Pokharel. Sephali is a Freshman at SMSU and a devoted SMSU SIFE member. Her dedication to the team has been proven through her selling efforts. She has outshined her competitors this week by selling 10 boxes of Cards Across Cultures cards for the team! She has one the coveted prize of a box of Valentine’s Day candy. Congratulations Sephali!

Currently, we have sold $710 worth of cards! We have come up with incentives for our team members—such as the CAC selling competition, where the highest seller gets a grand prize of $100—in order to keep up the momentum and sell, sell, sell!

On February 5^th, we are joining the door-to-door event that is being hosted by the Project Leaders of the Let’s Can Hunger project. We hope to continue selling more cards on that day.

Although the goal is always to raise money for the students located in these countries, we are also hoping to make the project more sustainable than it already is. As of January 14, 2011, our Cards Across Cultures cards are located on consignment in the Solar Drive In located in Springfield, MN, at Treasured Times on Main Street here in Marshall, and at the Hy-Vee Food Store. We would like to continue to project our image so that everyone knows where to buy our cards, so spreading our reach to more small businesses in Marshall and the surrounding areas is also the goal for 2011.

To enlarge our impact we found a great partner in the Porter Lutheran Church who is collecting for the Canby Food Shelf.

During the last few weeks, our Project Leaders were busy planning and came up with some great events!  We delegated tasks to other clubs to help us complete our Let’s Can Hunger Project. SMSU Club Food Drive Competition co-sponsored by the Student Government is one of these fun events. During the month of February, SMSU clubs will compete to see who can raise the largest amount of non-perishable food items. The top 3 clubs who have the most non-perishable food items will win a prize.

The major collection is the door-to-door event scheduled on February 5^th. SIFE members and other SMSU clubs go around Marshall and collect non-perishable food items. That is not all!  On February 28^th, right before March Madness, we will have a table in the lower level of the Student Center where students can fill out brackets for the Basketball Championship for $2 and the winner will get an excellent prize! All the money collected will be given to the food shelf.

Another round of collections at local stores is coming up soon. Join in and help us make the difference! Stay tuned for more information.

The first session, Budgeting and Finance, was a great success. With 14 patients and 3 presenters we discussed budgeting tips and tricks along with playing a fun game! The patients engaged in conversation and gained knowledge.

The second session was based on resumes, interviews, and job applications. At this session we had 24 patients present all of which received more information on the topics and nice hand outs from Career Services.

With the completion of the first stage of the project, we are happy for our success and ready to continue on. We hope to repeat these sessions so that more patients can acquire further knowledge and get SIFE’d!

MECLA, Marshal East Campus Learning Alternatives, is an alternative school that helps students receive lost credits and graduate from high school. This local school has all the tools students need to succeed, except one, a library.

One of our BAB members then introduced MECLA to our SIFE team and we discovered that by working together the students of MECLA can receive a fully stocked library and a can start their own bookstore! MECLA is not only a school, but a coffee shop. The students can earn extra credits by managing and working at their coffee shop located inside their school; what goes better with a cup of coffee than a book?!? By using their current coffee shop location and adding books, MECLA’s profits will raise and the students will gain more entrepreneurial experience.

Planning for this project is now in process and giant milestones have already been completed. SIFE’s 5,000 books and 20 bookshelves have been moved from storage into MECLA. MECLA students and faculty have been sorting the books to be displayed in both the library and the bookstore. SIFE members presented to MECLA students about how to run a successful bookstore, where to get the tools to succeed, and the importance of goals.

With these first milestones complete, the next steps are to create a marketing and advertising campaign for “The Bookcase” and find the proper method to keep inventory and financials in place. With the help of SMSU SIFE and the excitement of the MECLA students, we hope to have this book store up and running in the beginning of January.

SIFE is all about empowering people; by donating our books to MECLA and giving them the opportunity to run a bookstore, they will have the power and knowledge to be their own entrepreneurs.

            This project was first implemented in November of 2009, and we impacted so many people that we had to do it again! On November 20, 2010 our SIFE members went to a local gas station and discussed with local drives their proper tire pressure. We went to drivers, asked them about their proper PSI, measured their tire pressure, and gave them information and tools so that they can keep their tires filled properly.

            On this day we met with 41drivers and gave them each a SIFE tire gauge and window sticker with their proper PSI level. This gives them to tools to keep track of their tire pressure, save money, and help the environment.  

            This project allows us to connect with our community and give them valuable information. This project is far from over; we will be doing this legacy project for years to come.

            SMSU SIFE has been working on this project since September of 2010 and will do so until April of 2011. With this project we have two goals: the first goal is to raise 5,000 pounds of food; the second goal is to create lasting hunger relief by creating a cook book with cost friendly and easy recipes. With this challenge we will solve hunger issues now, and in the future.

            Right now our team is working to collect our 5,000 pounds of food, and we are off to a great start! On November 20, 2010 5 dedicated SIFE members went to Hy-Vee to ask local shoppers to donate a food items to our local food shelf. At this event we received 264 items! At our second Let’s Can Hunger event, our team went to County Fair grocery stores on December 4^th. Here we raised another 253 items! This brings us to 517 items of food to donate.

            We are at 10% of our goal for this project, so we still have a lot of donating left to do. We will continue to do events, raise awareness, and collect food items for our food shelf. Keep your eyes and ears open for this event and donate today!

            For more information on this project and others contact Tessa Weber at Tessa.weber@smsu.edu or 605-530-1415