Last Saturday, seven ONE volunteers in Chicago geared up for their first opportunity to let the presidential candidates know that want them to address extreme poverty and global disease on their platforms. Armed with signs that made said “What will you do to make poverty history?” they planned on holding them up on the side of the road as the candidates drove into Democratic debate at the Yearly Kos convention.

Foiled by the multitude of entrances into the convention space and candidates who arrived at the debate very early, they changed tactics and decided pass out ONE VOTE ’08 stickers to the people going into the debate. Working the crowd, they passed out all the stickers I had in my arsenal in an attempt to get as many people in the hall to wear a ONE sticker into the debate. But that was not enough for them, they really wanted to get to the candidates.

So, they headed up to the rooms where individual candidates would be taking questions after the debate. Three volunteers were able to talk to the candidates’ staff and gain entrance to the question and answer sessions. ONE volunteer, Savannah Hawkins, was even able to ask Gov. Richardson a question about extreme poverty and education and band him in front of the entire audience. The group then reconvened to celebrate their success and take a picture with the signs they had worked so hard on preparing. They look forward to the opportunity to use them again, but I wanted to make sure everyone got to see how cool they were.

-Annisa Wanat, ONE Regional Field Organizer

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