The Making of OCC TV!

January 30th, 2009 at 11:54 am

Your challenge for the next two weeks is to make your own ONE movie, so we thought we’d bring you a little “behind the scenes” look at how we make OCC TV…or rather, how we mess up, repeatedly, before finally making OCC TV.

Enjoy (and have a good laugh at) our outtakes in this OCC TV blooper reel:

-Emily Stivers

Get to Know Your COA: Betsy Avila

January 28th, 2009 at 5:43 pm

Betsy introduces Betsy:

Betsy Avila (that’s me), is your lovable COA for Wyoming and Nebraska. A Los Angeles native, she attends the University of Southern California and is a double major in Fine Arts and Political Science. She’s been a volunteer and intern for ONE since the OCC started one year ago, and is on her second year running ONE@USC.

Betsy has a dedicated group of team members and ONE supporters, and is grateful for all their time and effort making ONE@USC the successful group it is! In addition to rocking out and being awesome, the group also hold a number of events on campus meant to raise awareness and, just as importantly, have fun.
Betsy enjoys drawing, looking at pictures of adorable puppies, and writing about herself in the third person.

Super Challenge: Make a Movie!

January 27th, 2009 at 1:50 pm

Super Video Challenge

Details: 20,000 points to the school with the best ONE video.

Deadline: Midnight PST on Sunday, February 8th, 2009

20,000 points plus an awesome prize pack will go to the school submitting the best video raising awareness about issues of global poverty and development, and/or promoting ONE. You can make it heart-felt or goofy, shoot a mini-documentary or a commercial or whatever floats your boat. Just keep it relevant and under 4 minutes.

To submit your video, just upload it to a website like YouTube or Vimeo, and include the link in your challenge reporting. And make sure we have access to the video, sometimes if you set it to “private” we can’t see it.

You get 1,000 points for submitting a video, and the winning school takes home a goodie bag full of cool stuff and the 20,000-point super challenge prize.

And don’t forget to submit any accompanying hi-resolution photos for Photo of the Week. That’s another 1,000 points if you win!

-Emily Stivers

Challenge Winner: The Panthers Cat-Kick the Competition

January 27th, 2009 at 8:56 am

Rrowrr! Our recruitment challenge netted hundreds of new OCC members over the last two weeks, with nearly a quarter of them coming from the Ferrum College Panthers in Virginia. Honorable mentions go to the University of Florida and the University of Southern California, which also did great jobs recruiting.

With this big 20,000-point win, the Panthers leap up our Leaderboard from 45th to 30th place. It’s one of our biggest Leaderboard jumps of the year, and puts them just a few actions away from the top of the pack. One good petition-push or a couple of campus events might be all it takes!

Which goes to show you, this is still anybody’s game. The top 10 changes every week, and we’re really excited to see which schools and individuals step it up to win our top honors. So if you were thinking you’d just coast on your first semester success from here on out…think again!

And big congrats to Ferrum. We love an underdog–er, cat.

-Emily Stivers

Photo of the Week: Kennesaw State helps Atlanta become a “City of ONE”

January 26th, 2009 at 3:25 pm

Atlanta became a “City of ONE” last week with a little help from Audrey Ruark and Karen Heilmann of Kennesaw State University – which powers into our top 10 this week on the OCC leaderboard.

Remember the top 10 schools get $1,000 each to create global anti-poverty programs on their campuses, so this is definitely where you all want to be. Congrats, Kennesaw!

Also present at the Atlanta “City of ONE” declaration were representatives from CARE, RESULTS and Bread for the World, the Archdiocese of Atlanta, a few Atlanta City Council Members and about 15 other ONE members from the area.

Oh, and our very own Chris Berg also made an appearance. We’re betting he didn’t drive down, though.

-Emily Stivers

Get to Know Your COA: Matthew McAllister

January 26th, 2009 at 11:14 am

Here’s Matthew:

Matthew McAllister is a sophomore political science major at the University of Colorado – Boulder. He got involved with ONE after attending a U2 concert in 2003. Since then he’s worked around Colorado getting cities on board with the campaign by passing supporting proclamations. He also helped get a proclamation through the Colorado State Senate that declared Colorado to be a State of ONE. This past summer he worked for ONE in helping to plan efforts surrounding the DNC and build grassroots support.

At CU he worked with the student union and the Chancellor’s office to declare the University a Campus of ONE. He intends to make humanitarian work a part of his career in the future. Matthew’s other interests include slacklining, the balancing sport that involves walking on a 1-inch wide piece of webbing, ultimate frisbee (lives in Boulder remember), and video editing. He’s very excited about being a COA for ONE this year and is looking forward to lending a hand wherever necessary.

Inauguration Night at Webster

January 23rd, 2009 at 2:17 pm

At Webster University on Tuesday the inauguration celebration didn’t stop after Obama’s parade. That night several Webster University student organizations including ONE Webster threw a party to celebrate our new president. Bands Illphonics, Red Card Royale, C.J. Conrad and Saxifrage played in the Webster University Center as people danced, ate and drank.

Our hosts Blake Symphony and Essince kept the crowd entertained with karaoke and some random jokes. Halfway through I decided to give a little perspective to the day’s events and stepped up to make this speech about what Obama’s presidency means for ONE members and the world’s poor:

-Nick Stevens

ONE in Atlanta

January 23rd, 2009 at 11:34 am

Yesterday in downtown Atlanta, over 30 ONE members rallied together at City Hall to receive and celebrate a proclamation declaring Atlanta a City of ONE. After a lively press conference at noon, we all headed to the Council Chamber for the official presentation ceremony. We were also joined by representatives from our partner organizations CARE, Bread for the World and RESULTS, as well as Kennesaw State’s ONE Campus Leader, Audrey Ruark, and Amanda Meng from the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta.

ONE members Nancy Bauer and Kristi Wooten addressed the City Council and received the plaque, officially making Atlanta a City of ONE – a great example of how the work of a few strong-willed and motivated individuals can make a HUGE impact in raising awareness for the world’s poorest people.

Way to go ONE Atlanta! More to come including statements from local and federal Atlanta political leaders and video!

-Chris Berg

Get to Know Your COA: Samantha Butisingh

January 22nd, 2009 at 12:50 pm

Here’s Samantha

Hi everyone! My name is Samantha Butisingh. I am the Campus Outreach Ambassador (COA) for Maryland and Delaware and pretty soon, my home state of New Jersey.

I am also co-founder and the current president of our local ONE Chapter at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. I am a junior, double majoring in political science and psychology with a side of Russian. After graduation, I plan to attend grad school pursuing a master’s degree in Foreign Service, but before that, I want to work for the FBI for a couple years. Later on in my life, I also plan to pursue a doctoral degree in clinical psychology.

I have seen what living in extreme poverty is like through my many visits to Haiti and my birth country, Guyana. Guyana has improved significantly since I left, but is nevertheless still burdened by widespread poverty. My family members that remain there are considered the lucky ones – they can afford to have dinner on their table every night. Others are not as fortunate. However, it was my trip to Haiti on vacation that showed me a face of poverty that I have never seen. Unlike on my trips to Guyana, in Haiti I seized an opportunity to interact one on one with its most impoverished citizens. My mother and I had met a French couple who did humanitarian work. They took us around to shantytowns in the surrounding areas of Port au Prince. There I had gotten to see and speak with people who lived there. With no easy access to food and clean water, everyday life was a struggle for them. The stories of their everyday struggle to survive will stay with me forever. It is these stories that have inspired me to join in the fight against extreme poverty.

I was drawn to the ONE because of its belief in the political process and that with the right policies we can eradicate poverty and give relief to AIDS victims in the developing world. I believe that the political process can work, and if we unite as one with our fellow citizens nationally and globally, we can bring about real change. It takes political motivation at the highest levels to bring about the most dramatic change, and it is through the ONE that politicians can be pressured to take governmental policies in the right direction. Through the ONE, my voice has finally become part of this process.

I leave you with a quote from an inspiring humanitarian, former President William J. Clinton: “we cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs.”

-Samantha Butisingh

OCC TV: New Member Drive!

January 21st, 2009 at 3:50 pm

Welcome back to our first OCC TV of 2009. Watch ONE staff fall victim to another Chris Berg misunderstanding – what we’re looking for in our “New Member Drive.”

-Maisie Pigeon