People do not typically see volunteers doing push-ups for two hours straight in the Barone Campus Center, but on Nov. 4 at 10 a.m., this will happen for a good cause.
According to founder Michael Carter, Push for Entrepreneurship is a fundraising event that promotes entrepreneurship by having volunteers do push-ups for two hours. Volunteers, called “pushers,” raise money before the event. All proceeds go to the Norwalk and Bridgeport programs of Connecticut Invention Convention, a nonprofit organization that teaches entrepreneurship to children in kindergarten through eighth grade.
CIC is a program that allows children to create an invention that solves a problem, and they compete against each other with these inventions, according to their website.
Carter is the Managing Director at Carter Morse & Mathias, a local investment bank.
This will be the third year the event will be held at Fairfield University. The event, according to Carter, keeps getting bigger and bigger each year.
“Our first year, we had four people register,” said Carter. “The next year we had 20 people, last year we had 29 people, and this year we already have close to 49 people registered. It’s growing every year.”
The first year the event consisted of Carter and three others doing push-ups for two hours for a cause similar to CIC. However, this was before the event was known as Push for Entrepreneurship.
Carter described PFE as, “a fundraising event where participants … have two hours to do as many push-ups as possible during this time, with unlimited breaks.”
He explained that the point of the event is that it “enables people to exceed self-imposed limitations. It blows the lid off of any notion of what you think you’re capable of doing.”
“If you can do two hours of push-ups, you can probably do more than you think you’re capable of,” he said.
The other point of the event is “teaching the excitement of entrepreneurship to K-8 children,” said Carter. “Not everyone can go to college, but anyone can be an entrepreneur.”
Two Dolan School of Business students, Morgan Rosemann ‘18 and Matthew Sargent ‘18, are two of the pushers in the event, and, in addition, are helping to recruit Fairfield students as pushers.
“This event is about Fairfield U students coming together for a good cause but it is also about benefitting themselves as well as others,” said Rosemann.
According to Carter, there are multiple differences between doing two hours of push-ups and starting a business, such as that both are very hard, most people will say you are crazy for trying and very few people ever try.
Carter commented that entrepreneurship is more than just starting a business. “People can be entrepreneurial in how they paint, how they make music and how they make friends.”
“I don’t think business would exist without entrepreneurship,” said Sargent. “I think this country was built on entrepreneurship and the world was built on entrepreneurship. It’s one of the single most important things that we can do as a society.”
“Teaching entrepreneurship is something that can be taught at a very low expense and can change lives, but you have to start early,” Carter continued. “Once a kid invents one product, they’re hooked, and that’s why a lot of kids in the CIC program keep coming back year after year.”
Rosemann echoed this sentiment, adding, “I think everyone wants to be their own boss at some point in their lives, so having the ability to know how to start a business and use those skills to make your dreams come true is very important.”
When asked what hosting Push for Entrepreneurship says about Fairfield, Carter explained, “I think it validates Fairfield’s interest in entrepreneurship and it shows that Fairfield recognizes the ways entrepreneurship can provide equal opportunities for kids and level the playing field.”
“It’s a great cause, it’s a really novel idea, it’s a novel charity, and everyone should give it a chance,” commented Sargent.
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