Saturday, April 18, was the tenth – annual Earth Gathering Festival at the Historic Pump House Center For The Arts in downtown Chillicothe, Ohio. The event was hosted by the Chillicothe Art League and organized by ONE member Shelly Pocock. The event features earth-friendly art, music, food, products and ideas. The weather was perfect throughout the day, and when all was said and done, Shelly concluded that it was the highest attended and best Earth Gathering Festival so far. ONE Chillicothe participated for the third consecutive year and we focused on Millennium Development Goal number seven: to Ensure environmental sustainability.

We created games and teaching materials from the ONE website on Climate and Development, Agriculture, and Water & Sanitation. We gathered 52 new sign-ups in our small town that has already been declared a “City of ONE” and is ONE saturated. ONE shirts and bands are visible everywhere. The festival got going with a musical line-up that included ONE member, Stacey “Hippie” Skaggs, a very popular and talented acoustic folk artist. Stacey, promoting the cause in her ONE shirt, entertained the crowd with a 10 song set and a pretty cool ONE “rock goddess” pose. From the organizers, to the entertainment, to the participants, ONE Chillicothe members are gathering to get the word out about earth friendliness, extreme poverty and Global disease during the week of Earth Day. For more on this event, visit www.earthgathering.com.

-Chris Cooper, ONE Chillicothe Volunteer Leader