The importance of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) has always been clear to me. However, it never really hit me as much it did after the “Stand-Up” event I helped organize this month. The 237 people in attendance were the most diverse support for ONE we’ve ever gotten here in Columbus. Attendees wanted to know how they could do more in Columbus, out-of-towners wanted to learn how they could start ONE groups in their area and everyone there learned about the MDG’s, which was our ultimate objective.

After the event, Mike Beaumont and I went back to our apartment to relax and watch some footage from the day’s event. Less than two hours later, he was doubled over from a pain in his right side. We thought it would go away. Unfortunately, it did not and the pain kept increasing. I finally convinced him to let me take him to the hospital. As the night began to unfold, I kept thinking about the MDG’s and how over a billion people in the world do not have access to good health care. However, we are lucky, or as Mike always tells me, “We hit the lottery the day we were born because we were born in America.”

Because we live in the U.S. we were able to drive to the hospital, and although we were there for four and a half hours, Mike’s medical condition was assessed, diagnosed and treated within that period and I was able to drive him back home. If we were in some parts of Africa, we wouldn’t have had a hospital to go to. If we were lucky, and there was a hospital, we would have most likely been too poor to afford transportation so we would have walked miles to the only medical facility – while Mike was in severe pain. Mike would have had to share a bed and they may not have had the medicines necessary to treat him once he was diagnosed which in itself could have taken days.

So, think of the pain you, your family or friends have experienced in your lifetime and think about not having the resources we have here in the U.S. Think about that when you read the MDG’s and how the world made a promise to those living in extreme poverty and made a promise to us to help our neighbors overseas.