Meeting with Rep. Cantor’s Office

Feb 5th, 2010 10:08 AM UTC
By Jeanine Guidry

Yesterday afternoon I had the privilege to visit Capitol Hill and have a meeting with Kate McGregor, the legislative director of my congressman, Eric Cantor. I live in Richmond and absolutely love coming to DC – although the slip-sliding-away snow-and-sleet drive up on Tuesday night was a bit less ideal – and even though this was not my first visit to the Hill, I never cease to have a sense of awe. I was born and raised in The Netherlands, and will be sworn in as a US citizen February 17 – and yesterday it hit me: this will now be my government, these are my representatives, and I have a voice. I head up a small non-profit in Richmond, I have worked in refugee camps and orphanages in Asia, and I have a passion for making poverty history. 2000 kids die of malaria every day – a disease that is preventable. 200,000 dead in Haiti after last month’s earthquake. How can we NOT be involved? There are over 4000 ONE members in Virginia’s Seventh District alone – together we can make a difference.

When Lauren Conn from ONE and I walked into Congressman Cantor’s office and connected with Kate I quickly realized that Kate and I had met before, in a similar advocacy meeting last April. So in effect we continued the conversation we started back then. Our main “ask” this time was for Congressman Cantor to support the proposed increase in the foreign affairs budget for FY2011. It was an excellent conversation, and I was able to share some of the poverty relief initiatives I am involved with in the Seventh District. We look forward to working with Kate and Congressman Cantor in the future, and hopefully host him at a ONE-event in Richmond.

To find out how you can make a difference, go HERE.

TAGS: From ONE Members, ONE, Virginia