Many Americans have felt the impact of the recession, but the hardest-hit have been the nation’s poor and unemployed citizens, who have seen conditions worsen in recent years as resources and opportunities dwindle. However one Seattle University club is working to change this, providing workshops and educational seminars to help disadvantaged citizens gain employment, and find work in a challenging economy.

Such was the case last Friday, when a group of students from Seattle University’s SIFE club crowded into a university van to speak at the Union Men’s Gospel in Pioneer Square, a facility for homeless and disadvantaged men in the Seattle area. Speaking for one hour before a crowd of roughly 50, the students demonstrated interview tactics, presented  tips and advice, and delivered professional clothing collected from students on campus.

SIFE, which has been a club at Seattle University since the autumn of 2008, is part of an international intercollegiate organization with operations in over 40 countries worldwide. Short for “Students In Free Enterprise,” SIFE works to teach and employ the principles of entrepreneurship through education and non-profit activities, with roughly 42,000 active members at 1,500 universities across the globe.

The organization also holds local and national competitions in which representatives of socially-conscious companies judge presentations from member universities, awarding prizes and distinctions for the work of its member chapters.

Although the Seattle University chapter is relatively new, the group has grown quickly in its two years at the institution. Conducting regular events throughout the Puget Sound region, the organization grew quickly, winning the SIFE regional competition in 2009 moving on to take the national “Rookie of the Year” award in May.

Since then, SIFE has busied itself with regular projects across western Washington, with a goal of holding an event every one to two weeks. The group is also working on several long term projects, both domestically and internationally, in a spirit that club advisor Dr. Leo Simpson, Lawrence K. Johnson Endowed Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Albers School of Business considers exemplary of the Seattle University Mission.

With projects ranging from instructional seminars on gaining future employment for inmates at the Monroe Correctional Facility to financing education and microloan programs in rural Ghana, Seattle University’s SIFE team looks forward to expanding their goals in the years to come.