Toronto, ON (Thursday, March 11, 2010) – Ryerson’s “Students In Free Enterprise” or SIFE team has been named the 2010 HSBC SIFE Financial Education Challenge Regional Champion by national charitable organization Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE) and proud program supporter HSBC Bank Canada. SIFE Ryerson managed to take home two Regional Champion titles – also being named a Regional Champion for the SIFE Green Challenge.

All Ontario and Quebec based SIFE teams were judged by live panels of business professionals, and regional champions were announced on Monday March 8th in Toronto at the 2010 ACE Central Canada Regional Exposition.

The SIFE team from Ryerson University stood out to the judges because of their dedication to providing others with financial education and environmental sustainability. The team was able to connect with a wide variety of audiences through the outreach projects they have implemented over the past year, at no cost to participants. Highlights include:

• $tart $mart - engages high school and university students, at risk youth and young mothers, with financial literacy information relevant to their lives. In the 2nd year of operation, $tart $mart has more than doubled its reach from 7 to 15 institutions, increased the number of participants from 360 to 604, and the number of seminars from 36 to 73.
• The RU Green? Challenge engages high schools, universities and the community to make small “acts of green,” to create big results. The challenge awards points for environmentally sustainable actions, such as taking public transit, recycling, and switching to more energy efficient appliances. Major accomplishments to date include 17,000+ “acts of green” recorded, 730+ pounds of recyclables offset and 3,000+ people made lifestyle changes.

“Our team’s hard work continues to educate, inspire and impact the lives of everyone we work with. By providing the opportunity to gain hands-on, real-world experience, our members are achieving success, explains SIFE President, Rohan Sharma. “SIFE allows us to take our education from the blackboard into the boardroom, running projects in the real world – with a real impact.”

Teams have been provided the necessary tools and training from ACE to develop and implement their extensive projects to help others. SIFE Ryerson will now move on to the national level of competition, in both categories, taking place in Calgary on May 10th to 12th.

“The SIFE Ryerson team’s efforts are a great example of the financial education movement and environmental movement our students are leading across this country,” explains ACE President, Amy Harder. “I would like to thank HSBC in particular for supporting our Financial Education initiative nationally, without their support our students would not have the tools needed to lead these projects.”

About ACE
Founded in the mid-1980s, Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE) is a national, charitable organization that is teaching and igniting young Canadians to create brighter futures for themselves and their communities. ACE delivers a team-based program called Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) and an individual-based program, the Student Entrepreneur National Competition. These programs provide university and college students access to real world experience, through the implementation of outreach projects and business ventures that complement in-class studies. Students involved in ACE make a meaningful contribution to their communities today, and discover their potential to achieve an even greater impact as the leaders of tomorrow. Last year, ACE students created 600 jobs, logged 260,000 volunteer hours, impacted 63,000 people, and generated over $40 million in economic activity. ACE is currently established on over 50 post-secondary campuses across Canada.

Contact:
Jaime Szegvary
Communications Consultant, ACE
416.619.8994
jaime@acecanada.ca      

Rohan Sharma

President, SIFE Ryerson
416.319.2212
rohan.sharma@siferyerson.com

Sara Farajian
Director, $tart $mart
416.880.6941
sara.farajian@siferyerson.com

###