UPT SIFE TEAM HELPS TITUSVILLE SCHOOLS

OPEN E-SIFE SCHOOL STORES

TITUSVILLE, Mar. 11 -- Students of the University of Pittsburgh at Titusville’s SIFE Team (Students in Free Enterprise) will return to extend a helping hand to the fourth-grade students of the Hydetown Elementary and Cherrytree Elementary Schools for two weeks in March.  The UPT SIFE Team conceived and developed this program last year to help the budding entrepreneurs start up a small store that will offer 10 products for sale to fellow elementary school students. Products to be sold will be chosen by the fourth grade students using the democratic process.

 The UPT SIFE Team will help the students set up the store and also will provide the seed money (in the form of inventory and change) to start the store as a loan.  The fourth-graders will return the cost of the products to the UPT SIFE Team, but keep any profit.  Monies kept by the students will be used as determined by the teachers and principal at Hydetown.  The UPT SIFE Team members will be assisting the fourth-graders with the daily operation of their store and helping them in any way they need.

 By helping to initiate the stores, the SIFE Team hopes to teach the children such things as economics, marketing, accounting, math, interpersonal skills, and how to work as a team to achieve a common objective.  The Eagles Nest School Store in the Hydetown School cafeteria will be open March 10 - 20, 11:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m., Monday through Thursday.  The Cherry Pit Store at Cherrytree Elementary School will be open March 17 - 27.  Hours of operation will be the same.

 The E-SIFE stores will help school children gain an understanding of how business works.  Based on last year’s success, this program has been added to the Titusville School District curriculum.  Twenty-five students in THS’s Entrepreneurship Class will help supervise their own school stores (with the help of parent volunteers) at Main Street and Pleasantville elementary schools. The UPT SIFE Team will train and assist the high school students. 

 Active on more than 1,200 college campuses in 20 countries, SIFE is a non-profit organization that works in partnership with business and higher education to help students take what they are learning in the classroom and apply it in real working situations to better themselves, their communities and their countries. Founded in 1975, SIFE provides college students with the opportunity to make a difference and to develop leadership, teamwork and communication skills through learning, practicing and teaching the principles of free enterprise.

 Further information is available by contacting SIFE World Headquarters in Springfield, Mo., at 1-800-677-SIFE, by visiting www.SIFE.org or by calling Melanie Anderson, UPT SIFE advisor, at 827-4415.

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