Mayor Rudy Giuliani held a town hall meeting at St. Anselm’s college today in Manchester, so I caught up with a few ONE members sporting ONE shirts and ONE bands and headed over.

After a brief speech, Rudy opened it up to questions from the crowd and I was able to use my voice for the poorest people in the world. After noting the U.S.’s historic AIDS and Malaria initiative, I said that I think our nation is the greatest nation in the world, and that when we save lives, it proves it to the world. I then talked about how Bill Gates had recently asked all of the presidential candidates to support and expand the President’s Malaria Initiative and asked Rudy if he would continue that effort.

Even before I could finish my question, Rudy started by saying empathically “Of course! Of course!”, and was very anxious to tell me how he strongly supports US efforts in Africa!

He took his glasses off and said that everyone should realize what this administration has done to save lives in Africa, and the entire crowd clapped. Rudy complimented ONE for our work bringing Republicans and Democrats together as Americans, and went on to say that the US needs to be the number one leader in these global efforts, like fighting AIDS, because we are the richest economy in the world!

Then he said that the United States does a lot of trade with Europe, and that we are starting to do more trade with Latin America, but told the crowd that we need look to Africa and encourage more trade with African countries too.

After the event I tried to snap a few photos of ONE members with the Mayor but we were unable, so I got a great shot of ONE member and St. Anselm’s student Rachel in her Edun shirt!

-Matthew Bartlett, ONE Regional Organizer