When I joined ONE in December 2006 I was not entirely sure how I was
going to get involved and use my voice to help fight extreme poverty and
AIDS around the world. I was just one person in Arkansas, but thinking
about my own son and thinking about the fact that every day almost
30,000 children under age 5 will die from preventable and or treatable
diseases I knew I had to take action!

While on www.one.org I found
information on how to make your city a “City of ONE” and got to work
with my home town of Sherwood, Arkansas. It didn’t stop there though I
kept going, with a goal of getting every city in Arkansas on the ONE
map! To date I have worked with mayors and city councils across the
state and have 37 “City of ONE” proclamations, more than any other state
in the Nation. Now the governor has proclaimed Arkansas as a “State of
ONE” and it is time to celebrate!

For the occasion we are hosting “ONE Arkansas” in Little Rock on May 31,
2007, at 2:00 p.m. in the State Capitol Rotunda. This special event
brings Arkansas ONE supporters together to celebrate Governor Mike
Beebe’s leadership in declaring Arkansas a “State of ONE” in 2007, 37
Cities of ONE across the State, and to celebrate the leadership that
Arkansas’ elected officials have demonstrated on both the state and
federal levels.

I will be speaking at ONE Arkansas and other confirmed speakers at the
press conference include Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, Group Vice
President of Enterprise and Agriculture for Winrock International David
Norman, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Heifer
International Tom Peterson, and other representatives from the
community.

If you are one of the over 12,000 ONE members in Arkansas, please come
out and join me next Thursday because when we work together as ONE we
are helping to change lives in Africa and the world’s poorest countries.