OCCers, your Challenge this week: design your own ONE Campus Shirt.

Submit your entries by midnight on Sunday. Winner gets 10,000 points.  This is the second time we’ve done this challenge and we got some pretty clever/aesthetically pleasing submissions last year. Here’s to hoping for more of the same. Some helpful hints on what we, the judging panel, are looking for:

-Put a large, clear ONE logo somewhere on the shirt. Obviously the point of this Weekly Challenge is to develop a ONE Campus Challenge shirt, so we should know what the shirt is for. Feel free to reference this year’s theme, too!

-Make sure that the writing is visible. The message of a shirt is much more accessible if someone walking past doesn’t need to squint to read it.

-Avoid too much clutter. If you have only three seconds to display your shirt to someone walking past, you want to make sure they understand it!

-Use your U. Incorporate your school’s flair on your design. Minimum 16 pieces…just kidding.

-DON’T use a school logo without appropriate permission. We at ONE encourage lawful t-shirts so let’s try to avoid the copyright issues.

-DON’T use profanity. No one likes an angry garment.

-DON’T endorse a candidate or political party. We’re nonpartisan here and try to give love to both sides of the aisle, or none at all.

We’re only allowing one submission per OCC member, but schools can submit as many designs as desired to increase their probability. Submit your designs here.

FYI - If you’ve already submitted a T-shirt design, you may submit it again for challenge winner consideration, but you will not get the additional 150 “ONE your shirt” action points for any previously-submitted design. And while the limit is one design per member, if you have submitted a design before this week, you may submit a different one for this challenge and get the points as well as challenge winner consideration.

Good luck! 

-Maisie Pigeon

Every school that did a competitive entry into the final weekly challenge used phone calls as their weapon of choice for making their voices heard.

And though several schools placed hundreds of calls, UNLV did it the best. 

The Rebels gathered together a core group of people of people for a marathon phone bank calling all of their members of Congress on each of ONE’s key pieces of legislation.  With a grand total of 540 phone calls, they have certainly shown that they know who to bring people together to take effective action.

Good luck to UNLV and everyone else as we head into the final round of the competition.

They came bearing gifts. Jamie and Justine, that is. Those who attended the Power 100 will certainly remember them; but they trekked all the way up to Connecticut to Sacred Heart University to deliver our weekly challenge prize. The prize was 100 custom ONE T-shirts that one of our own members designed. The coolest part is that they are all made by Edun Live, the company started by Bono’s wife that makes their shirts from 100% African cotton. In the short time we’ve had the shirts, we’ve been the most stylish poverty fighters on campus and are raising quite a demand for them! Thanks again to ONE for the amazing gift; and we made a special video JUST for Weldon and Erin to say thank you! Huzzah!

As University students, the members of the Sacred Heart ONE Campaign have realized one thing; the positive correlation between education and being able to make a difference in the world. So naturally, when the weekly challenge was to integrate ourselves further into the community, we turned to local (very wealthy) Frenchtown Elementary School.

Our target audience consisted of three 2^nd grade classes, so we didn’t want to terrify the kids with the over simplified facts that many ONE members are familiar with. So like any intelligent, free thinking individual, we turned to Dr. Seuss for a little assistance. ONE had previously won a poster design contest here at SHU and our prize was a $50 AMEX gift card, so with our “prize money” we bought three copies of “Have I Ever Told You How Lucky You Are?” and a few extra ONE bands.

Ten of our students and staff arrived at the school at about 1:30 on Friday, armed with the books, bands, and a few packets of construction paper. We went into the classes and introduced ourselves, stating that we were with the ONE Campaign, whose goal was to make life a little bit easier for those less fortunate than ourselves. We had a very informative few minutes, asking them how many meals they ate that day, where they were going after school (most said ‘home’), etc. Then we told them that not everyone was as fortunate; some people don’t get to eat every day, let alone 3 full meals. Cue Dr. Seuss. We read and afterwards passed out the construction paper. We asked them to trace their hands, and inside, to write one thing that they learned. A few selections:

I learned not to waste food. - Breanna

I learned to keep the environment clean - Katie

I learned that I am very lucky to have toys to play with. – Zachary

I learned that if you have extra clothes you can give them to the poor – Annie

I learned that I want to help others – Paul

Anyway, after spending a little more time with the kids (who were adorable, mind you) and taking a few more group pictures, we forced ourselves out of the school because we still had more work to do. We have a surprise for them that we’ll be giving them on Monday morning; a giant ONE poster made up of all their hands with the fingers locked together! It was a colossal effort that we pulled off in a very short amount of time; and there is no doubt in our minds that our devotion to the principles of the ONE campaign have sparked a few future-grassroots activists to join in the fight against poverty. Huzzah!!

~ Mike Fazzino, Sacred Heart University

This week’s challenge is to reach out by doing a project in your local community. While our efforts on campus can make a huge difference, when we expand our reach we amplify our impact with elected officials and in the local media.

Whether you team up with someone from the local community for a lobbying visit, going to your old high school, or tabling at a local hot spot, this is your chance to start expanding your impact.

You can report your efforts using our handy reporting form.

Have fun with this challenge, this really is a chance to do something very different from your normal routine.

Kansas State - quietly lurking the teens for a long time now - is about to launch themselves into the top ten with a great educational Power Point detailing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the ONE’s efforts of fight global poverty. The presentation will net them 50,000 points as the winning entry into last week’s weekly challenge.

We’ve uploaded the presentation so you can check it out an use it on your campus.

All of the other presentations were pretty good, and for spreading awareness on their campuses we gave each school that submitted an educational project 1,000 points.

Last week was a close competition for who could bring in the most new recruits, and this week was anything but.  Western Kentucky ran away with it, bringing in 274 new members.  Second place goes to Saint Anselm with a distant - though impressive for one week - 107.

We’ve rest the counter, so get recruiting this week and see if you can score 10,000 points for you school next Monday.

 I bet 50,000 points sounds pretty good right now. So we’re gonna let you have it. If you can win a weekly challenge that is. On that note, here is the next weekly challenge:

1/28 – 2/4: Create the Best Educational Project
Since awareness of the depth of extreme poverty and what we can do to help alleviate it is vitally important to making us all more effective advocates, we’re looking for a project that does just that. But the winning project will likely be something that doesn’t just serve to educate your campus, but can be used again in other venues (e.g. a great PowerPoint, video, or educational game).

You can submit your entry using our handy reporting form.

Last week the Campus Challenge got rolling again with contest to recruit the most new members in one week.  This morning when we took a look at the numbers we were blown away by the lengths that schools went to nab the prize.

Brandeis University came out on top with 350 sign ups in 7 days.  But hot on their heels was UNLV with an impressive 340 recruits.

Guess this is going to be one fierce competition from here ’til the end!

At the Power 100 Summit we heard from several people that it would be helpful to know all of the weekly challenges in advance to help you plan out your semesters and take more effective action.  We got the message, so here are the challenges for this semester:

Now – 1/28: Recruit
Recruiting is still one of the best ways to make a difference, and bringing in new members is probably the best way to start off the new semester. The school that signs up the most new members between now and Monday will get 10,000 points on top of the points earned for the new recruits.

1/28 – 2/4: Best Educational Project
Awareness of the depth of extreme poverty and what we can do to help alleviate it is vitally important to making us all more effective advocates. The winning project will likely be something that doesn’t just serve to educate your campus, but can be used again in other venues (e.g. a great PowerPoint, video, or educational game).

2/4 – 2/11: Best Off-Campus Project
Getting local media coverage and putting pressure on a local member of Congress is much easier when you team up with your local community. Anything from a lobbying visit with other local activists to getting your town declared a ONE city can count. The most creative and effective project will win.

 

2/11 – 2/18: Put Your Skills to Work
Whether you do a dozen lobby visits or 200 phone calls, this is your last chance to score big before we start handing out prizes to the top 10 schools. Whichever school does the best advocacy work during this week wins.

And if you ever feel like passing along a suggestion, like the one to tell you all the challenges in advance, please do send it along.