Ron Brownstein of the National Journal has published a great piece today about ONE Campus Challenge Power 100 Summit, a conference of 100 college student ONE leaders which we hosted in DC last weekend. Having conducted interviews with a number of the students who attended, Brownstein speculates that “Millennials may balance idealism and pragmatism better than either Baby Boomers or Generation X-ers.” You can read more about this year’s Power 100 Summit here.

Excerpts below, full piece here

Among the students who filled a seminar room for discussions on organizing techniques or international development was a delegation from Curry College, near Boston, that was led by John Abdulla, a senior. Abdulla became interested in global poverty when he heard Bono tout ONE during a U2 concert in 2005. After talking with Sudanese refugees attending his school, Abdulla focused his energy on building a well to provide clean drinking water for a village in Sudan. Through two years of arduous fundraising, he persevered with fellow students to collect $5,000 toward the well’s $10,000 cost; then a donor agreed to match their contributions. Now a nonprofit group is scheduled to build the well this spring. “Through all that,” Abdulla says, “I never imagined we wouldn’t do the well.”

Also in the room last weekend was Justin Kralemann, a Baylor University junior. Kralemann’s interest in poverty was crystallized when he joined his mother on a business trip to China. Looking through their car’s rolled-up windows, he saw an anguished mother holding a malnourished child and felt painfully “isolated” behind the glass. Although his Texas university is considered a conservative campus, Kralemann has enlisted 1,200 supporters for ONE, which pushes for more foreign aid and reform in developing countries. “I feel these issues can be tackled,” Kralemann says, gesturing toward the seminar room, “and there are 99 other people in there who agree with me.”

-Chris Scott