The newly established Florida Southern College Enactus business organization will be competing at regional competitions in Dallas, Texas this April for a chance to make it to Nationals, and possibly even the World Cup.

The team consists of Brandon Freedman, Alexandra Bolke, Daniel Diekneit, Julie Gladish, Lexi Gauslow and Alex Charwin. Project leaders John Riley and Logan Muether led one of the three projects on which they will be presenting.

Their project, “Growing Good Habits,” consists of building two organic gardens at Gause Academy, a public middle school in Bartow. They received a $2,000 community improvement grant from Lowe’s, a home improvement company.

Riley and Muether were one of only 50 teams selected to receive this grant from over 1,500 teams worldwide. The project itself is a Lowe’s community improvement project that teaches students how to develop leadership, team building and work force competencies through the development and maintenance of a community garden.

This teaches kids how to grow and maintain an organic garden. Not only that, but the kids are also researching cancer-fighting foods to grow in  their garden.

Gause Academy partnered with a local chef to develop its own cookbook, which will incorporate recipes from foods with cancer-fighting attributes.

The proceeds of the book will go to support the American Cancer Fund, as well as to fund the maintenance of the organic gardens at the school.

Regional competitions will take place in Dallas from April 9-11.

“We will present on the tenth, and what we do is you have to make a 20 minute video presentation,” Brandon Freedman, president of FSC Enactus, said. “You also have to write a script, so we’ve all been working tirelessly on that, putting in countless hours a day. You also have to make an annual report. It’s all very structured and professional. You walk in there, straight line, and present to top CEO’s from around the country, and they’ll judge your projects and what you’ve completed throughout the year. You’re in different brackets, so they’ll compare you to other teams as well.”

If selected, the top three of the seven teams in each bracket will go on to compete at national competitions.

From there, if the team  is named National Champions, the team would go to the World Cup, which is located in Cancun, Mexico this year.

“I think there’s about 25 or 30 teams competing in Dallas, Texas, but there’s 1,500 teams worldwide,” Freedman said. “Everyone can go to regional competitions, that’s like the first step, and then from there, I have high hopes that we’ll make it to nationals.”

(Photo courtesy of www.flsouthern.edu. Photo portrays Freshmen Julie Gladish and Lexi Gauslow who organized the Shark Tank competition and will be going to Dallas along with Brandon Freedman, Alexandra Bolke, Daniel Diekneit,  and Alex Charwin.)

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