Belmont University
EN-9: Community Partnerships

The university has an award-winning program known as Enactus which has won both the U.S. national competition (which included 600 colleges), as well as coming in third in the global Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) competition. Enactus’ current signature project is Spring Back Recycling, which employs the homeless in the recycling of mattresses that would otherwise be sent to landfills. Currently, almost 6,000 mattresses have been recycled. This initiative is now receiving attention from cities beyond Nashville that want to adopt this innovative and effective sustainability effort. Others such sustainable projects have been started by SIFE. For example, women have been taught how to make beautiful jewelry by creating beads from the paper of discarded magazines. These items are then sold in the U.S. to provide funds for the families of these African villagers. fashionABLE is a Nashville-based nonprofit with a mission of creating sustainable business opportunities for women in Africa. Founded in October 2010 by Barrett Ward, fashionABLE currently sells a line of woven scarves produced by women in Ethiopia who have been rehabilitated out of lives of prostitution. Belmont Enactus students have helped fashionABLE develop its business plan, perform financial modeling, and manage inventory and order fulfillment. Another project was to develop a cottage business for women who had a criminal history of prostitution. The business, Thistle Farms, uses the lowly thistle as the basis for making products from paper to bath and body lotions. Thanks to the efforts of the university in conjunction with the Thistle Farms leadership team, these products are now sold nationwide through Whole Foods. helping Metropolitan Nashville Parks assess the biodiversity of the Hill Forest Natural Area Students in this class volunteered at community gardens throughout Nashville. One student in particular tended the Scaritt Bennett Peace Garden, a garden intended to promote interfaith and intercultural conversation through shared gardening and food. Students worked with various local environmental organizations on different projects, including: adopting a stream and organizing a stream clean-up, environmental lessons to an afterschool program, creating an interactive website mapping trees in Davidson county, building an accessible garden at a local park, trail maintenance at a local park, showing an environmental documentary to high school students and in public venues

The university has an award-winning program known as Enactus which has won both the U.S. national competition (which included 600 colleges), as well as coming in third in the global Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) competition. Enactus’ current signature project is Spring Back Recycling, which employs the homeless in the recycling of mattresses that would otherwise be sent to landfills. Currently, almost 6,000 mattresses have been recycled. This initiative is now receiving attention from cities beyond Nashville that want to adopt this innovative and effective sustainability effort. Others such sustainable projects have been started by SIFE. For example, women have been taught how to make beautiful jewelry by creating beads from the paper of discarded magazines. These items are then sold in the U.S. to provide funds for the families of these African villagers. fashionABLE is a Nashville-based nonprofit with a mission of creating sustainable business opportunities for women in Africa. Founded in October 2010 by Barrett Ward, fashionABLE currently sells a line of woven scarves produced by women in Ethiopia who have been rehabilitated out of lives of prostitution. Belmont Enactus students have helped fashionABLE develop its business plan, perform financial modeling, and manage inventory and order fulfillment. Another project was to develop a cottage business for women who had a criminal history of prostitution. The business, Thistle Farms, uses the lowly thistle as the basis for making products from paper to bath and body lotions. Thanks to the efforts of the university in conjunction with the Thistle Farms leadership team, these products are now sold nationwide through Whole Foods. helping Metropolitan Nashville Parks assess the biodiversity of the Hill Forest Natural Area Students in this class volunteered at community gardens throughout Nashville. One student in particular tended the Scaritt Bennett Peace Garden, a garden intended to promote interfaith and intercultural conversation through shared gardening and food. Students worked with various local environmental organizations on different projects, including: adopting a stream and organizing a stream clean-up, environmental lessons to an afterschool program, creating an interactive website mapping trees in Davidson county, building an accessible garden at a local park, trail maintenance at a local park, showing an environmental documentary to high school students and in public venues

The university has an award-winning program known as Enactus which has won both the U.S. national competition (which included 600 colleges), as well as coming in third in the global Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) competition. Enactus’ current signature project is Spring Back Recycling, which employs the homeless in the recycling of mattresses that would otherwise be sent to landfills. Currently, almost 6,000 mattresses have been recycled. This initiative is now receiving attention from cities beyond Nashville that want to adopt this innovative and effective sustainability effort. Others such sustainable projects have been started by SIFE. For example, women have been taught how to make beautiful jewelry by creating beads from the paper of discarded magazines. These items are then sold in the U.S. to provide funds for the families of these African villagers. fashionABLE is a Nashville-based nonprofit with a mission of creating sustainable business opportunities for women in Africa. Founded in October 2010 by Barrett Ward, fashionABLE currently sells a line of woven scarves produced by women in Ethiopia who have been rehabilitated out of lives of prostitution. Belmont Enactus students have helped fashionABLE develop its business plan, perform financial modeling, and manage inventory and order fulfillment. Another project was to develop a cottage business for women who had a criminal history of prostitution. The business, Thistle Farms, uses the lowly thistle as the basis for making products from paper to bath and body lotions. Thanks to the efforts of the university in conjunction with the Thistle Farms leadership team, these products are now sold nationwide through Whole Foods. helping Metropolitan Nashville Parks assess the biodiversity of the Hill Forest Natural Area Students in this class volunteered at community gardens throughout Nashville. One student in particular tended the Scaritt Bennett Peace Garden, a garden intended to promote interfaith and intercultural conversation through shared gardening and food. Students worked with various local environmental organizations on different projects, including: adopting a stream and organizing a stream clean-up, environmental lessons to an afterschool program, creating an interactive website mapping trees in Davidson county, building an accessible garden at a local park, trail maintenance at a local park, showing an environmental documentary to high school students and in public venues