Local business owners and community leaders met with campus leaders to strengthen ties between the city and college at a networking reception hosted by the Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Honorary Saturday at the college.
Enactus, one of the student groups represented at the event, used the reception to develop one of its primary projects of creating an organic agricultural cooperative downtown.
The reception, the second the honorary has hosted, allowed Enactus team members to strengthen community ties and establish new contacts — which helped advance Enactus’s current projects and emphasis on working with the surrounding local community to deal with energy issues.
The club has been working all year with local farmers and representatives of Bon Appétit to plan an organic agricultural cooperative downtown. According to Enactus President junior Nick Brown, organic agriculture is an increasingly important aspect of the Hillsdale community.
“Organic agriculture is kind of a heartbeat in Hillsdale,” Brown said. “We saw that on Saturday mornings during the farmers’ market. That’s one of the times that the Hillsdale community is alive. We wanted to somehow focus on that, and try and expand it to another level.”
For Enactus, this involved meeting with both local farmers and Bon Appétit management in order to learn how to enhance this aspect of the community. The groups hope to foster a sustainable method of providing local organic produce for the people of Hillsdale.
The business reception helped turn these ideas into viable goals by providing additional contacts and resources. Contacts included community members, such as Mick Ritter, co-owner of Broad Street Downtown Market and Tavern, and Christine Bowman, executive director of Hillsdale Chamber of Commerce.
“I think we’ve further refined the implementation of the community agriculture cooperative,” Brown said. “We had some good back and forth dialogue with Christine and Mr. Ritter of how we’re actually going to implement this.”
Bowman also provided more detailed information on the needs and operations of organic agriculture in Hillsdale.
In addition to constructing an operation to help sell the organic crops, project members must also problem solve for practical challenges, such as finding a market for the produce and keeping the product fresh.
Ritter noted the feasibility issues that come with the market for fresh organic produce.
“There’s a lot of issues with working with produce and things that are perishable,” Ritter said. “It’s unfortunate that the season is so short. It’s a difficult thing because of the freshness and the short turnover. The market gets flooded with a lot of produce in a short amount of time.”
Ritter also noted the challenge of finding a market for the organic products, which is more difficult for a smaller city such as Hillsdale.
Although the Enactus team projects are still in the works, and additional planning and troubleshooting are needed, the business development reception helped to foster additional community connections to help make their visions reality.
Junior Aaron Schreck, Enactus vice president of communications, noted the potential ideas kindled from discussion with community leaders.
“Enactus found the experience extremely valuable. The mixer connected us to people whom we otherwise would not have met that share our vision for community food partnership,” he said in an email. “I think, at least on our end, the mixer was a big success. Enactus left with a few new ideas and some valuable contacts that can hopefully help us do some positive good connecting low-income families with high-quality food.”
Interactions such as these embody the purpose of the business reception, which sought to bring together members of the community and the college who focus on similar issues.
Senior Sam Ryskamp, Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Honorary president, said that the reception served as a positive indicator for future interactions between city and college leaders.
“The receptions were very encouraging. There were a lot of good conversations that were sparked, and a lot of good ideas,” he said. “I hope that it will have an immediate effect, in ideas such as Enactus’s, but I also hope that it will have a long-term effect. I hope, bigger picture, that it helps bring together the college and community, and that it promotes collaboration and conversation.”
