The Millennium Campus Network held a conference this past weekend to discuss global poverty and health. ONE’s former intern, Sam Vaghar, helped create this new network of Boston area colleges and universities, and their conference hosted over 700 students and included top global health experts like Ira Magaziner, Dr. Paul Farmer, as well as an event with musician John Legend and Dr. Jeff Sachs.

I attended the first day of the event at MIT and immediately noticed a few ONE shirts and many, many ONE bands. After opening statements and a very good speech by Sam, the keynote address was given by former presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards. In his speech, Sen. Edwards spoke about his travels to Uganda and the extreme poverty he witnessed in Africa. He spoke about the need to fight AIDS and malaria to help bring stability to poor nations and citied America’s moral standing in the world.

After his speech, I was able to briefly speak with Sen. Edwards and thanked him for raising the issues of global poverty while on the campaign trail. We even talked about the global poverty speech he gave in New Hampshire.

From the campaign trail to the colleges campuses, people everywhere are organizing and realizing that in today’s world, that we have the resources to fight global disease and end extreme – less than a dollar a day – poverty.

-Matthew Bartlett

On Saturday evening, the democratic candidates and many of their supporters flocked to Des Moines, IA, for the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. Before the event, most of the candidates held rallies around the downtown area. I went with ONE to check out what Barack Obama had to say.

The Obama rally started off with an opening band from Iowa State. The next act before Sen. Obama took the stage was five-time Grammy winner John Legend – wearing a ONE band! His performance was fantastic!

Then, after Barack’s speech, ONE members actually got to go talk to John Legend! We went backstage and two teachers from Minnesota talked to him about his recent trip to the Millennium Villages projects in Tanzania and the work he’s doing with Show Me – a ONE partner organization that John Legend started. Then my sister and I got to talk to him about the work he’s doing on college campuses (he was just at Tulane with Jeffrey Sachs). Of course, we invited him back to Iowa to perform at Iowa State University.

After meeting John Legend, we spent some time at the ONE booth telling people about the ONE Campaign and asking them to sign the declaration to show their support. We even banded Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, and when US Representative Dave Lobesack walked by, he waved at us and showed off his ONE band too. It just goes to show that ONE is for everyone – politicians, musicians, and especially ordinary Iowan voters.

-Helen Tobin, ONE member at Iowa State