SIFE serves holiday meals

dynamic, Issue 12, Kirstie McPeek, Shaina Denny, Campus Life - By Shaina Denny on Thursday, December 2, 2010 - 03:34

This Thanksgiving, Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) revitalized a service they held two years ago by collaborating with Bon Appétit to provide a warm turkey dinner to those who are less fortunate. SIFE continues to serve the community. SIFE is an international nonprofit organization that is formed by future business leaders. Whittier College’s SIFE group competes in the SIFE World Cup which contestants present their success of community service and business events they contributed to over the year.

On Nov. 19, SIFE members met at St. Matthias Episcopal Church to feed about 150 hungry individuals. About 15 members of SIFE showed up to help serve. SIFE had set up a table outside the Campus Inn the previous week recording ID numbers of students willing to give up one of their meals to provide the less fortunate a warm meal. With the help of enough willing students, Bon Appétit put those student’s meals in to go trays for SIFE to serve.

Steve Olvera, a junior Business Administration major, worked with senior Doris Youmara to put the plan into action. “We plan to do more services similar to this over Christmas and Easter, too,” Olvera said.

Olvera was satisfied of the successful outcome of the event. The less fortunate were very vocal about their appreciation of SIFE’s service. Many of the hungry people lined up to receive their food came back for seconds. “The meal was much better than other turkey dinners I had from other organizations,” one man said. “The school talks so much about community service, so I wanted to actually do something about it,” Youmara said. SIFE plans on continuing to put many more services into action this year and has high hopes of how they will do in Nationals.

With the participation of many students giving up one of their meals SIFE was able to successfully provide meals to those who would have otherwise not had the opportunity to eat a turkey dinner this holiday. SIFE’s business leadership group is available to students and you can find more information about their contributions on the college website.