College of Charleston pulled off quite a feat for their final push before the competition narrows to the Top 10: they mad e ONE the official homecoming theme.
For a solid week no one on campus could avoid their groups message of joining together to fight extreme poverty. It’s not surprising that they captured some sweet pictures along the way.
Western Kentucky University got out and got public in a big way this weekend to win last week’s challenge: off campus outreach. They did everything from tabling at a movie theater to simply banding people at cafes and coffee shops.
It can be intimidating to get out into the community and talk to people about ONE, but it can also be highly effective. Congratulations to Western Kentucky and all the other schools (like College of Charleston and Sacred Heart) that got off campus this last week and engaged even more people in the fight against poverty.
This Summer, the Student Government Association at the College of Charleston started a committee that we called the Cougar Spirit Initiative (CSI, clever aren’t we?). We knew that CofC would be a ONE Campus at the start of the semester but we wanted to extend this into every part of campus life. The best way to do this was to make it the theme of the biggest event during the year, Homecoming.
From the CSI we developed ONE Pride: ONE House, our 2008 Homecoming theme. It was going to be a blitz-build of a Habitat for Humanity House in downtown Charleston. This was our way to “think globally and act locally”. But we wanted to take it one step further. We wanted to extend this effort to the continent of Africa and our students performed.
So here’s the plan: for two weeks in February, 2000 volunteers from the College of Charleston and the surrounding Charleston community are building a Habitat home for the Nelson family in downtown Charleston. And we’ve already started! Two months ago, Project Harambee, a student group, traveled to Kenya and built an orphanage for community outside of Nairobi. We’ve linked poverty as a global problem. We’ve built a home in Kenya, and a home in our own back yard.
And we’re still building our Habitat House! We need to raise $60,000 and we’re only $10,000 short- so feel free to donate at cofc.edu/blitzbuild . The house will be presented to the Nelson family on Feb. 16th at both an on-site ceremony and our homecoming basketball game.
Together, we’re uniting as ONE to show our pride with the true idea of a homecoming. ONE Pride: ONE House at the College of Charleston.
Birds are singing, the weather is beautiful, and politicians are everywhere you turn. With the South Carolina primaries not so far in the distance it makes sense that many of our presidential candidates in both parties are beginning to make their stops thoughout the state, in particular college campuses. A recent statistic has shown that over 30% of the participants in the Iowa Caucuses in early January were young people of ages 18-25. This is the election that students are beginning to take part in. We have seen that our voice can make the difference and we are turning out in record numbers.
Today, College of Charleston hosted Senator Barack Obama in our Bully Pulpit Series: Reflections on Presidential Communication. In a surprise turn of events, Senator John Kerry first came to the stage to endorse Senator Obama. In all the hullabaloo I couldn’t quite get the best picture with the Senator but told him thank you for supporting the ONE Campaign. And his reply? “There’s nothing else like it, thank you for being part of it; it’s a great campaign.”
Also, Senator John Edwards made his way to North Charleston to volunteer at a local Food Bank which is a distribution center for soup kitchens to feed local impoverished people. When asked for a picture, Senator Edwards jumped to the opportunity stating that the time and effort that we put in as members of ONE is truly extraordinary.
The times, they are a changin’
I’ll continue with updates from South Carolina- Huzzah!
Tuesday, November 27th, College of Charleston in Charleston, SC hosted Representative Ron Paul on campus for our Bully Pulpit series. “The Bully Pulpit: Reflections on Presidential Communication” is a series hosted by the College of Charleston and its Department of Communication that welcomes presidential candidates from the two major political parties to the College of Charleston campus to discuss the importance of presidential communication. The video of Dr. Paul can be found at cofc.edu/bullypulpit .
After the event, I met with Dr. Paul to discuss the issues of extreme poverty around the world. I told him about the ONE Campaign and our efforts to end extreme poverty and fight the global AIDS pandemic. He said he supported humanitarian aid if the money were available. Dr. Paul supports ONE in our effort- so add one more presidential candidate to the list!
At long last we processed the points for all the phone calls that you guys made asking your members of Congress to support the Jubilee Act backing mid-October, and they have really spiced things up.
Campbellsville University jumped 30,000 points, while Hofstra and College of Charleston only made 5,000 and 8,000 points respectively, making the race for the top that much closer.
But more importantly, these phone calls really are one of the best ways to help push crucial pieces of poverty-fighting legislation through Congress. Campbellsville’s 30,000 points shows that they are not just organized, but that they are actually effective anti-poverty advocates. Way to go guys!
The College of Charleston showed why they are doing so well in the Campus Challenge this week with an awesome adaptation of the ONEbyONE ad. They took this ad and adapted it to demonstrate the power of ONE, the grassroots. The result is pretty powerful.
Winning the weekly challenge earns them 10,000 points and gets them that much closer to catching Hofstra University, which as been in the lead for a couple of weeks. The next challenge for 10,000 points is to design the best new ONE shirt.
The OCC Blog is a daily log of the ONE Campus Challenge, a competition among American college students
to prove that their campus has the most creative and effective extreme poverty fighters in the country.
The site is operated by ONE volunteers and campus leaders.
The content of each post represents the views of that post's author and does not necessarily reflect the
views of the ONE Campaign. 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.
Understand how the ONE Campus Challenge works by reviewing the rules. All participation in the challenge is subject to the terms and conditions in the rules.
From the CSI we developed ONE Pride: ONE House, our 2008 Homecoming theme. It was going to be a blitz-build of a Habitat for Humanity House in downtown Charleston. This was our way to “think globally and act locally”. But we wanted to take it one step further. We wanted to extend this effort to the continent of Africa and our students performed.
And we’re still building our Habitat House! We need to raise $60,000 and we’re only $10,000 short- so feel free to donate at cofc.edu/blitzbuild . The house will be presented to the Nelson family on Feb. 16th at both an on-site ceremony and our homecoming basketball game.
