From Brande Jackson:

The ONE concert outreach team has been busy the past few weeks – we just finished the Warped Tour, and are still on the road with the Dave Matthews Band.

Warped Tour proved to be as much fun as always – we talked to thousands of young people across the country about the work of ONE and what they could do to get involved and make a difference. As always, we had amazing volunteers join us throughout the course of the tour as well. The diversity of our volunteers always impresses us – we get to meet people doing amazing things for ONE in their own community, and Warped always provides us with a unique chance to get to work with young volunteers that are making poverty history in their high schools and colleges. A big thanks to all of you that joined us this summer and braved the heat and loud punk rock – we hope to see you all again next year!

Our Dave dates have proved to be a great success as well – we are very excited to have Product (RED) joining us for this tour. We kicked off this exciting collaboration in Milwaukee, where we were joined by new and veteran volunteers (a special thanks to Alyssa, our Chicago based rockstar volunteer who once got over 500 people signed up at a single show!) alike that helped us get thousands of DMB fans educated and involved.

This past weekend, we were back at the Gorge, in central Washington. Friday night we had veteran volunteer Sammi join us, coming in from Seattle, as well as Rachel and Carnie, first time volunteers who got involved via (RED) and drove all the way up from Portland. The crew did great – they kicked off the weekend in style, getting hundreds of DMB involved with fighting AIDS and poverty. As always, the night was full of unique stories – people planning trips to Africa, Peace Corp volunteers and more – I am always amazed at the extent of stories we get to hear doing this work.

We had a great team on Saturday night – Kelly and Jason are leaders of the ONE Spokane group. Kelly is a high school teacher who was in Uganda earlier this summer, and he also brought two of his students along, Jamie and David. David is property of the Navy as of Wednesday, so we were very honored that he choose to spend the last of his free time with us. He and Jamie have been active with ONE and other Africa focused organizations at their high school. Sandra drove in with Jason and Kelly – she to is active with ONE in Spokane. Kristina was a first time volunteer who signed up to volunteer via (RED) – she came in a bit late and missed part of our volunteer training, so we were concerned that she wouldn’t feel 100% in doing outreach, but she proved us wrong, and ended up getting more sign ups than anyone! Tim had joined ONE at a U2 show a few years back, he’s not totally sure how he got on my volunteer list, but he was glad he did! Ryan first learned about (RED) via the Vanity Fair (RED) issue earlier this year – this was his first volunteer experience and he did great. Rounding out our team was Sammi from Seattle, for her second night in a row. I couldn’t even find most of our volunteers while they were working – they took to the lawn as soon as we were done with our training and talked to hundreds of fans in the process. We ended up having one of our best nights of the whole tour thanks to this amazing crew!

Sunday brought more wind, and more great volunteers. Jennifer and Sean both are involved with the ONE Spokane group, and both are also teachers. Sean teaches college part time, and Jennifer is an elementary school teacher. We also had Colette and Zach join us, a couple from Seattle that got involved as volunteers through (RED). And of course, Sammi joined us again as well! Once again, our volunteer team proved to be rockstars, getting a ton of DMB fans involved with ONE and (RED).

All weekend long, we were greeted with flashes of white bands and thumbs up from those that had joined us at an earlier show or on another tour. I also met two fans who had to buy new bands because their dog ate theirs, the best story I heard all weekend! We met countless people who shared what they were doing to fight poverty and AIDS in their own community, and heard from dozens of people that had already bought (RED) products and were excited to learn they could do more.

We’re heading to Atlanta for the next round of DMB shows – watch for more updates soon!

-Brande Jackson, ONE Concert Outreach