Transforming the Community Impact of Campus Space: Bow Valley College and WINS Open a Social Enterprise Thrift Store

Bow Valley College and Women In Need Society (WINS) have partnered to launch a new on-campus thrift store that combines affordability, sustainability, and hands-on learning. The initiative gives students access to low-cost essentials while creating real-world learning opportunities in social enterprise and community impact.

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What is social entrepreneurship?

We define social entrepreneurship as using business models (selling a good or service) to enhance social impact. This reflects most Canadian definitions.

Beyond balance

Many see the social and the entrepreneurial as being in opposition, like two sides of a scale that needs to be balanced. Instead, we see the social and the entrepreneurial as partners in progress.  

Aspirational

We support a social entrepreneurship movement that dares to ask, “How far could we go in solving the world’s problems, and even fulfilling our potential as human beings, if we fully harnessed the power of business models to enhance social impact?”

Are you interested in learning more about social enterprise? Do you have an idea for a new social enterprise that you’d like to develop? Do you want to explore how it could help you achieve your mission and what it would take to launch?

For all its momentum, the social revolution of the 21st century – as in social finance, entrepreneurship and innovation (on my more disillusioned days, it’s the ‘soc drawer’) – is at a critical tipping point. Simply put, we need to move beyond theory to the practical ‘how to’. It’s amazing how many thought leaders in this space are coming to this conclusion.

For the first time in his working life, Caleb Bethune doesn’t dread waking up to another day of work, not since he began his career as a software tester with the Calgary-based social enterprise Meticulon. Meaghan Thompson, a fellow employee, shares a similar story of being inspired and energized by her work with Meticulon.

The five days of Beakerhead officially get rolling today with the world’s largest pop-up gallery, called a String (Theory) of Incredible Encounters, with a circumference of five kilometres. The series of public art installations is an exploration in creativity at the crossroads of art, science and engineering, and can be seen by touring from Inglewood to East Village to Victoria Park, 17th Ave and Kensington. The home base or hub for Beakerhead this year is at Station B (the Beakerhead moniker for installations at Fort Calgary).

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