Enactus Memorial has topped the regional competition and is heading to the national competition once again this May.

Nineteen Memorial University students took part in the Enactus Canada Regional Exposition-Atlantic Canada on Feb. 28 and March 1 in Halifax, N.S., which saw 12 post-secondary institutions take to the stage to showcase projects that help to create sustainable communities.

Enactus Memorial won all three of its categories.

“I’m thrilled with the team’s performance,” said Shane Skinner, president of Enactus Memorial, in an email. “I knew we didn’t leave anything on the table, but nonetheless, you never know how the judges are going to evaluate your projects and presentations. So to place so well in all three topics was a great success.”

Enactus is an international non-profit organization that mobilizes university students to develop outreach projects that improve the quality of life and standard of living for people in need. Teams from universities and colleges across the world compete in a variety of regional and national competitions for the chance to demonstrate the impact of their community projects at the world championship each year.

Enactus Memorial has won the national championship six times in seven years and was named the world champion in 2008.

“By getting a chance to see what other teams are doing, it gives our team at Memorial a chance to incorporate some best practices that maybe we didn’t think of when developing a project,” said Mr. Skinner. “By competing against teams in Atlantic Canada two months before the national event, we’re given the opportunity to see how we currently stack up against the competition, and that’s key.”

Enactus Memorial presented the results of nine different community projects in three categories.

In the TD Entrepreneurship Challenge, the featured projects were Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur, Bright Futures and Passport to Success. In the Capital One Financial Education Challenge, FLAGS, FYI and Change Matters were presented. In the Scotiabank EcoLiving Green Challenge, the team spoke about Project Bottlepreneur, Be Green and Green Audit.

The top two teams from each category move on to nationals. Along with Memorial, teams from Nova Scotia's Saint Mary’s University and Acadia University will represent Atlantic Canada at the national championship in Toronto, Ont., from May 6-8.

Enactus Memorial will spend the next few months fine tuning its projects.

“We need to buckle down here now and re-focus for nationals,” said Mr. Skinner. “Obviously, it’s an honour to be named regional champions in all three categories, but that is in the past and we need to shift our attention to continue building our project portfolio. We’ve got a lot of exciting things on the horizon, so we need to make sure that we can achieve all of those.

“I have every confidence that we’ll have a great showing at nationals this year and continue to showcase the great work that we’re doing in the community.”