Business students use grant to provide equipment, develop marketing
plan
MURFREESBORO — Suitcases,
garbage bags and assorted carrying cases for clothing and personal items form a
line just inside the entrance to the Way of Hope Women’s Resource Center off
South Rutherford Boulevard and Dill Lane.
It’s a mandatory daily ritual for the homeless single mothers
and children served by the center as they prepare to relocate to one of 16
local churches that will serve as their host for the night. This daily
undertaking involving an average of 30 to 40 women and children takes a lot of
time, energy and resources, and the Christian-based nonprofit could use some
help.
Since last semester, a group of 10 MTSU students in the
Jones College of Business has been working with the Way of Hope to develop a
marketing plan to spread its message more effectively and generate needed
financial support for a program that relies on the community’s generosity.
With funds from a $1,500 Coca-Cola grant, the student group
Enactus has supplied the center with a computer, software, printer, phone
system and retooling of its website. The student group, which was previously
known as Students in Free Enterprise, or SIFE, focuses on putting
entrepreneurship into action through community service.
MTSU students Eric Wedgworth and Brittany Page have been
deeply involved in the project, which began in the fall. Page, a junior
business management major from Parsons, Tenn., and Wedgworth, a senior
marketing major also from Parsons, Tenn., have been volunteering at the Way of
Hope since the nonprofit’s inception two years ago. The Enactus project
deepened their involvement.
“Right now, we’re just giving them the tools that they
need,” Page said of Enactus’s assistance to Way of Hope. “We’re hoping to get
more computers, since this is a resource center, to help the ladies and the
children with technology.”
MTSU marketing instructor Laura Buckner serves as an adviser
to the student group, which has a motto of “A head for business, a heart for
the world.” The Way of Hope project is an excellent opportunity for students to
exemplify that motto, she said.
“Students who are engage in Enactus have an opportunity to
utilize the skills that they learn in the Jones College of Business to make the
world a better place,” Buckner said. “In this case, the students actually wrote
the grant themselves, decided the budget of how to spend the money and will be
tracking the success of the nonprofit in the future.”
Way of Hope founder and Executive Director Brad Blomgren is
very grateful for the assistance, which he says is helping his organization
fulfill its mission of providing a safe place and meals during the day for
struggling women with children who oftentimes have nowhere else to turn.
Through its partnership with area churches, Way of Hope has
provided over 17,000 individual nights of shelter and 50,000-plus meals since
November 2011. Among other services, the resource center provides a full-time
caseworker to help the women with things such as job preparation, housing
searches and applications for social services.
“It’s a safe house for women who are homeless,” Blomgren
said. “When they search for resources, sometimes they get hit on, solicited and
propositioned. A lot of times people think that because they’re homeless,
they’ll sell themselves. … The resource center gives them a place to go so that
they don’t have to subject themselves to that.
“It’s so hard for single moms to make it,” he said.
The Way of Hope will hold a special Women’s Day event April
11-12 to educate the public about the challenges facing homeless women and
children locally.
The free two-day Women’s Day event includes a full slate of
activities, with Friday, April 11, featuring a health fair with CPR, first-aid
training and self-defense training at New Vision Church; on Saturday, April 12,
the community is invited to the court square to participate in a 5K run, a
kid’s fun run, craft fair fundraiser, parade and concert.
For more information about the event, visit http://www.wayofhope.net/womens-day-of-hope.html.
Wedgworth said the MTSU Enactus group was among 25 similar
groups that received the Coke grants to develop projects that empowered women to
succeed. Wedgworth said the group will continue working with the women’s center
to provide as many opportunities and avenues as possible to help the many women
served there.
“We’re working with another organization that could possibly
get us (refurbished) laptops,” he said.
The center offers laundry facilities, computers, a
playground and a children’s room. It also provides temporary stays for the
homeless women who may be suffering from an illness or recovering from a
medical procedure and need somewhere to go. Since the center opened in late
2012, it has provided temporary shelter to five women with newborns who had
nowhere else to go after being discharged from the hospital, Blomgren said.
“This gives those women a place to recover,” he said.
For more information about the Way of Hope, contact Blomgren
at 615-653-8027 or via email at brad@rutherfordwayofhope.com,
or visit www.wayofhope.net. Blomgren
said the resource center would be glad to partner with more local churches.
For more information or questions about how to get involved
with MTSU Enactus, contact instructor Laura Buckner at laura.buckner@mtsu.edu or instructor Jean Wilson at jean.wilson@mtsu.edu,
or learn more on Facebook at Enactus MTSU.
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