May 9th, 2008 at 1:06 pm | posted by Virginia Simmons
Since February of this year, people have been gathering in eleven cities across America for the “Everything Must Change Tour.” The tour brings together a wide range of sponsors – from the Sierra Club to Sojourners to a seminary (Mars Hill Graduate School) to the ONE. And it brings together a wide range of people as well – church leaders, lay people, and spiritual seekers. What brings them together? A desire to understand contemporary global crises and learn what they can do to switch sides from being part of the problem to part of the solution.
Based on my 2007 book, Everything Must Change, the tour highlights four global crises: first, environmental deterioration; second, the growing gap between rich and poor; third, the proliferation of catastrophic weapons, and fourth, the failure of our world’s religions to mobilize people to address the first three crises. Through my research for the book, I became completely convinced: if we want to make a lasting difference in any one of the crises, we need to see how they’re all interrelated.
The conference includes lectures, video, small group interaction, prayers, other liturgical elements, and original music. It’s not too late to catch the tour in Goshen, Indiana (May 9-10). For more information and to register, go to deepshift.org.
May 6th, 2008 at 3:16 pm | posted by Josh Chernila, ONE Online Communities Coordinator
One week ago at scoop shops across the country volunteers helped launch the new Ben & Jerry’s flavor, ONE Cheesecake Brownie, to spread the word about ONE, recruit new members and enjoy a free frosty delicious treat. Nationwide, approximately 250,000 ONE Bands were distributed at 350 participating shops on April 29th for free cone day.
As a wrap-up from one of our most successful national efforts, here are some selected stories ONE members wanted to share:
Debra Goldenberg, Berkeley, CA:
Berkeley event went well, 105 people signed up with ONE. Most didn’t have time to linger at the table, as they were rushing in to get icecream, but I did make some connections with a couple of active UC Berkeley students (one invited me to table at an upcoming event she is holding with her Roots and Shoots chapter, which is a group founded by Jane Goodall) and with staff from the Seva Foundation, www.seva.org, which also had a table at the store. I suggested they partner with ONE, it could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
One thing I learned this time, the handouts, while full of wonderful information, are too dense for many people at this event, they did not want to read that much or take papers with them, and were more attracted to the colorful vote08 brochures. I know those are expensive…I think next time I will print a few bold point of interest facts to display that will help start conversations and maybe prompt them to look into more information in the handouts.
And I got to taste brownie cheesecake,,,yum! It was a fun day, the time went very fast!
Colin Woods, Ft. Collins, CO:
It went fantastic. And i felt like it was a huge success. I was even able to contact another very enthused guy. He would like to start putting together meetings and he is the leader in a band and wants ONE stuff to be at all his concerts. He is a great guy. We gave out hundreds and hundreds of bands. It was great. Unfortunately, however only 3 people were able to help with the table but it turned out fine anyway. I think any more and people would have been afraid to look over at the table. Thank you for contacting me about this event it was a great experience and I hope I can help out more in the future.
Chris Geer, ONE Vote ‘08, Pennsylvania:
With things quieting down on the presidential campaign in Pennsylvania following the primary election on April 22, ONE Vote ’08 took advantage of the lull by enjoying some free ice cream! Ben & Jerry’s held a free cone day at its “scoop shops” across the country on Tuesday – this year highlighting its partnership with ONE with their new flavor, ONE Cheesecake Brownie.
Starting at noon, ONE Vote ’08 staff were out for the day at the Pittsburgh Ben & Jerry’s with ONE volunteers signing up new ONE Members, handing out literature and ONE bands to the lines of people out for the free cones. Over 120 new ONE Members signed the ONE declaration, some stopping to talk about the real issues of poverty and global disease and many joining up as volunteers. While numerous people had heard of ONE and knew of Bono’s connection to the organization, for most it was a great chance to get the word out about OV08 and the opportunities we have because of the election in November.
Cherie Martinez, Marin County, CA:
A friend and I set up at the Greenbrae (Marin County, CA) Ben & Jerry’s store. John the owner and two of his kids along with other scoopers were very helpful and really enjoyed the event.
There were lots of people to take part in the Free Cone Day. We signed up 80+ people. It was encouraging to hear so many young kids and teenagers asking about ONE. There was one kid - he was six - asking what diseases were in Africa and what is a bed net and what did the ONE people do to help. He said he didn’t have email, but when he got it he would sign up.
It was a busy afternoon and a bit frantic at times, as the line grew long for a couple of hours. It certainly was a great success.
This little girl had just been back for her second choice on Free Cone (Cup) Day. She seemed really happy about it.
Matt Higgenson, ONE Vote ‘08 Nevada:
Tuesday, April 29th was a very tasty day in Las Vegas NV. Recently Ben & Jerry’s launched their a new ONE flavor of ice cream to help raise awareness about extreme poverty and global disease.
In addition to launching “ONE Cheesecake Brownie” Ben & Jerry’s teamed up with ONE for their annual free cone day. At participating shops throughout the country Ben & Jerry’s staffers were in ONE shirts and the shops had ONE literature on hand to give to customers.
The ONE Vegas chapter was on hand at a couple shops in Las Vegas to sign up new members and talk with patrons about ONE’s efforts to save lives and eradicate extreme poverty.
Ambassador of ONE, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, was a guest scooper at one Ben & Jerry’s location. Mayor Gibson has already declared Henderson a “City of ONE” and remains committed to helping his constituents understand the importance of eradicating diseases like malaria and tuberculosis.
Danielle DePas, ONEMiami:
The high school students from ONE Pines Charter were at the Ben and Jerry’s at the Hard Rock Casino in Ft. Lauderdale. They talked to many people, took a lot of cool pictures, got about 80 signatures, and loved the ice cream! Fleet week was in town, so we saw a lot of uniforms.
Rochelle Gibbs, Twin Cities:
We spent our time between two locations in the Twin Cites - 3 of us (including Libby from OV08) spent the full day at America’s first indoor mall and we collected more than 200 signatures. Another volunteer spent the evening at a very energetic UofM campus location that brought in their own DJ. In my location, it was mostly passerbys stopping by the kiosk to take advantage of the free ice cream and they had never heard of ONE prior to this day. I thought this was a great promotion that allowed us to connect with folks who would not have otherwise heard of ONE.
ONE Dallas:
Dallas had a great time!! We gave out a TON of information to tons of people. Nikki McKibbin from American Idol Season ONE was our Celebrity Scooper and she did an autograph signing as well! She seemed to really have a good time! I have uploaded pictures on the ONEDallas myspace….. myspace.com/onedallas!
April 30th, 2008 at 3:57 pm | posted by Josh Chernila, ONE Online Communities Coordinator
We don’t need a warm and sunny day in Seattle to enjoy a free ice cream cone and tell folks how they can help make poverty history. Crowds lined up at the Kirkland Ben & Jerry’s, in Kirkland, Washington, right across from downtown Seattle.
The lines were long at the tiny storefront facility; just enough room to keep the people moving in and out. Our table was set up right outside the door and a ONE member greeted everyone as they came in. Because Ben & Jerry’s posted info on how to join ONE via text, many were members before their free cone was in hand!
When the crowd thinned a little I snapped this picture of Seattle ONE volunteer Alicia greeting the front of the line (which extended down the block.)
Owners Jen Greene and Michele Sullivan and their fun staff made it a great event for all. They decked their shop out in an amazing Ben & Jerry’s ONE theme, and the hot chocolate was a real boost for us ONE volunteers. It was also a huge kick to see a sea of people enjoying their cones and wearing ONE stickers. That really made my day. We distributed many fresh ONE bands to the crowd and lots of people were really impressed with the Ben & Jerry’s / ONE and ONEVote 08 pamphlets we handed out.
Best of all, we had a great recruiting day. Lots of folks who had been looking for a good way to get more involved with ONE locally were excited to connect with our Seattle ONE group. A great day in the region. How sweet it is!
April 24th, 2008 at 12:40 pm | posted by Aaron.Banks
If you’re a NYC-area ONE member or are going to be visiting the Big Apple between April 30 and May 4, you won’t want to miss the world premiere of “A Powerful Noise,” co-hosted by ONE and CARE. This moving documentary by Tom Cappello follows four women - Nada Markovic, Bui My Hanh, and Jacqueline “Madame Urbain” Dembele - as each of them go about the daily business of empowering, educating, and seeking justice, weaving through locations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mali, Vietnam and to tell a tale of hope much larger than the sum of its parts.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:09 pm | posted by Aaron.Banks
Inspiring nurse, activist and ONE member Agnes Nyamayarwo’s just sent an email to ONE members. Check it out below:
….
Dear ONE Member,
My name is Agnes Nyamayarwo. I’m a nurse, a mother and an activist living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda.
It has been more than a decade since I lost my husband, Augustine, and youngest child, Christopher, to AIDS; another son, Charles, ran away from home to escape the stigma of this disease.
Now I honor their memory through my work with an organization called TASO (The AIDS Support Organization) here in Kampala, Uganda. At TASO, I work with HIV/AIDS patients, orphans and mothers to try and save others from experiencing the pain I have.
I am also a member of the TASO Board of Trustees, representing the views of people living with HIV/AIDS in all the 11 centers of TASO across the country. You can learn more about TASO here.
Your work at ONE to make global AIDS an American priority has touched my heart. Last week, you asked your members of Congress to support the reauthorization of PEPFAR and fund the fight against AIDS, TB, and malaria and you won.
Now PEPFAR goes to the U.S. Senate and I’m asking you to please sign ONE’s petition and urge your senators to co-sponsor this lifesaving bill.
PEPFAR, America’s response to the global emergency of AIDS, malaria and TB, has already passed in the House with bipartisan support, 308 to 116, last month.
Now we’re trying to reach 50 co-sponsors for this legislation in the Senate. That level of support will help guarantee passage of this bill to increase funding - for proven solutions to these deadly but treatable diseases - from the $15 billion spent during the last five years to $50 billion for the next five.
We’ve set an aggressive goal of 50 Senate co-sponsors and we’ll be updating the blog and our “senatometer” regularly with the new signers.
TASO receives PEPFAR funding and is a perfect example of what communities can do to fight AIDS and start to work their way out of poverty if we simply provide a little assistance. In their own words:
Today TASO is the largest indigenous NGO providing HIV/AIDS services in Uganda and Africa, having supported over 150,000 directly since its inception. The organization has 11 service centers spread in Uganda, with now 13 “mini-TASOs” in other parts of the country that are outside TASO’s catchment area of 75Km from the nearest service center. A mini TASO is a public Health unit that provides TASO-like services. TASO has given 10,000 clients ARVs including 500 children since we rolled out Antiretroviral Therapy in June 2004.
On Friday, March 29th and Saturday March 30th, volunteers from ONE Miami tabled at “Ultra Music Festival,” a 2-day concert composed of more than 100 DJs from around the world and an estimated 70,000 attendees. Our 10×10 ft. plot of land drew a good amount of attention. We adorned our table with a white sheet, a banner, flyers, business cards, and of course, the declaration.
We also set up a white sheet to serve as a film screen, a LCD projector and a computer to show ONE commercials and ONE Miami created videos. I like to believe we had the best looking booth at the festival, but I may be a bit biased. Many people came to look at the visuals, but they stayed to discuss the issues of extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS. A phenomenon of this tabling event that I have not seen before was that not one person walked away without having signed the declaration.
Once the crowd around our table died down, we took our agenda to the crowd. We weaved around the multiple stages in our ONE t-shirts, armed with flyers, wristbands, and the declaration. We spoke to concert goers and vendors, security and entertainment. Many people were very receptive and even had stories of their own to share.
Tabling for ONE provides a unique opportunity to meet many different people and share perspectives on very serious issues. Oftentimes you spark in people a latent desire to make this world better that is particularly inspiring. When this happens, and it is quite often, you find the real pleasure of tabling for ONE.
[Lots more photos from Ultra Miami on Flickr here.]
April 4th, 2008 at 11:39 am | posted by Virginia Simmons
By ONE’s Marjorie Harris, for the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Dr.
On the evening of April 3, 1968, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, stood before a crowd at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, the city was under a tornado watch and the streets blanketed with sheets of rain. As he rose to take the podium to deliver his sermon – frequently referred to as the “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech- the storm crested in areas surrounding the city as tornadoes and torrential rains left damaged homes in their wake. Many recall his oratory of that evening – his fluent references to the “promised land” and “freedom in the air”. Yet, few acknowledge that on that evening, the eve of his assassination 40 years ago today, that Dr. King was doing what he believed he was called to do at that time in history — fighting on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised.
As the nation pauses to recognize the life and accomplishments of one of the world’s greatest leaders, those of us who are committed to the ideals of social and economic justice for the overlooked, the underprivileged, and the poor, must acknowledge that we too, are being called upon to act in the middle of a storm. When we overlook the 25 million people in Africa who are infected by HIV/AIDS, we cannot adequately brace ourselves for the impact that will be felt when this disease reaches our local communities. When we fail to pressure our elected officials to support legislation that addresses the more than 450 million people around the world who lack access to clean water, or the 77 million children who are unable to attend grade school because their parents cannot afford books or fees —- we cease to be worthy of the legacy of Dr. King and others who withstood the tempests of their time to effect social change.
Towards the end of his “Mountaintop” speech, Dr. King encouraged the rally attendees to continue to stand with the striking sanitation workers – the working poor. We must go to the mountaintop of our day and look ahead to the end to global poverty and disease. We must raise our voices, as one force, to bring us to the promised land of the 21st century.
March 31st, 2008 at 11:27 am | posted by Sammi Fredenburg, ONE member, Seattle, Washington
Snohomish RESULTS and The Snohomish County Health District (a community north of Seattle) held very inspiring event to honor World Tuberculosis Day (TB) at at the Wired & Unplugged Internet Coffeehouse and the region’s ONE members came out to support.
TB is the leading cause of death worldwide among women. More than nine million people are infected and nearly two million lives are lost to TB globally . Over one-third of the population of the earth has been exposed to the bacterium and is according to the World Health Organization, a new case develops every second. Not everyone infected develops the full blown disease, but one in ten will, and without prompt and thorough care, will die from this disease.
The ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, volunteers, members and coalition partners.
The content of each post and each comment represent the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the ONE Campaign or ONE Action. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any posts expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
Since February of this year, people have been gathering in eleven cities across America for the “Everything Must Change Tour.” The tour brings together a wide range of sponsors – from the Sierra Club to Sojourners to a seminary (Mars Hill Graduate School) to the ONE. And it brings together a wide range of people as well – church leaders, lay people, and spiritual seekers. What brings them together? A desire to understand contemporary global crises and learn what they can do to switch sides from being part of the problem to part of the solution.
Debra Goldenberg, Berkeley, CA:
Colin Woods, Ft. Collins, CO:
Chris Geer, ONE Vote ‘08, Pennsylvania:
Cherie Martinez, Marin County, CA:
Matt Higgenson, ONE Vote ‘08 Nevada:
Danielle DePas, ONEMiami:
We don’t need a warm and sunny day in Seattle to enjoy a free ice cream cone and tell folks how they can help make poverty history. Crowds lined up at the Kirkland 
