WHITEWATER — Business students at UW-Whitewater are thinking of ways to improve the city where they study. Their entrepreneurship idea for Whitewater just brought home a national award.
UW-Whitewater's chapter of Enactus, a non-profit organization for social entrepreneurship, won first place at Enactus' national competition last month.
WATCH: UW-Whitewater students win top award for a project to revitalize Whitewater's downtown area
They won for RenewTowns, a pitch competition which supports entrepreneurs in Whitewater and other surrounding communities.
"The whole mission of RenewTowns is revitalizing communities by accelerating and launching small businesses," said James Drucker, a member of the Enactus team and a sophomore finance major at UW-Whitewater. "We're doing this because we enjoy helping people."
RenewTowns has helped launch 14 businesses so far in Whitewater, Fort Atkinson, Cambridge, Edgerton, and South Milwaukee.
Jessica Latella's business idea Earth & Iron, a combination wellness store and wrestling gym, came in second place in Whitewater's last RenewTowns program. She still received enough support to open her business on Center Street two months ago.
"My customers definitely appreciate having something like this here. They say, 'You only ever see stuff like this in big cities,'" Latella said. "I'm reminding people to keep shopping at these downtown businesses. If you want to keep a cute downtown, you have to shop downtown."
UW-Whitewater's Enactus students will present the RenewTowns concept at the Enactus World Cup in Brazil this November. They say the true measure of success is not what happens at the world cup, but how their work affects Whitewater.
"I'm hearing people on campus when I'm walking through the halls and seeing them talk about these storefronts we're helping open," said Enactus team member Marina Neitzke, a junior at UW-Whitewater. "It's a very powerful opportunity."
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