ONE Saint Louis members experienced a heaping dose of coincidence yesterday. It just so happened that the one weekday our co-chair Bob McMullen had off of work that month was also Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day. It was also a convenient coincidence that Delmar Boulevard is home to both Senator Claire McCaskill’s office and Ben & Jerry’s. Luckily, Michele Sherod, who heads McCaskill’s St. Louis office, had half an hour free to meet with us that day to discuss legislation that will save millions of lives.

We discussed the Global Child Survival Act, the Global Poverty Act, the Education for All Act and the PEPFAR reauthorization. McCaskill has yet to co-sponsor any of these despite having supported the recent Jubilee Act and the International Affairs Budget allocations. Michele did not have any answers for us that day, but we agreed to follow up in two weeks.

To finish off the day, we hopped in line at Ben & Jerry’s to get a lick of the new ONE flavor. The line stretched out the door and around the block so I was relieved to find there was still some of the new ONE Cheesecake Brownie ice cream left. After I snapped a few pics of ONE gear in the shop an employee showed me their ONE Campaign manikin and posed for a pic with it. I wish we could have tabled there that day, but employees took care of that for us by handing out info and ONE bands with each cone of ONE Cheesecake Brownie. I realized the movement taking place here was no coincidence. Companies, customers and legislative staffers are all taking notice of the Campaign to Make Poverty History.

-Nick Stevens, ONE Saint Louis co-chairman