The Fancy Dress Swim to Make Poverty History once again attracted a lot of attention to the ONE Campaign! People were curious about what we were doing parading around on the beach in fancy dress. This provided the opening to talk about ONE and get them involved. Doing this just before the Twilight Dance Series concert on the Santa Monica Pier gave us a built-in crowd. Though we didn’t have a lot of time before the concert started, a number of people signed the ONE Declaration and showed a lot of interest in the Campaign. Fortunately I’d printed out several copies of the fact sheet beginning with the Millennium Development Goals and gave them out to those wanting more information.

Our experience continues to be that all sorts of people are much more intrigued and open to us when we are wearing fancy dresses than if we’d just been wearing our ONE t-shirts. Most of us wore a ONE t-shirt with our costume.

We’ve done five Fancy Dress Swims so far, starting in June of 2006 and each one has been totally fun and wildly successful! Now we’ve started ONE_SantaMonica to continue and expand the work/play in this and other ways. We are in the process of planning our next event for Global Day of Action October 17 at the Church in Ocean Park.

What is a Fancy Dress Swim to Make Poverty History? We use the playful, fun, spectacle of going in the ocean or other bodies of water in fancy dress(es) to attract attention to ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History and get people involved.

-Herley Jim Bowling, ONE member, Santa Monica, CA