ONE Campus Challenge 3: Tell your member of Congress to protect foreign aid

This blog post was originally published on the ONE Campus Tumblr.

Up for another challenge? The third leg of the ONE Campus Challenge is here, and we’re asking our students to take it to the streets. Programs that fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and chronic hunger could be drastically cut by the Senate this month. Between now and November 18th, meet with your members of Congress and tell them to protect international development programs in US FY2012 Budget. Let your member know that these programs work and are saving lives. Head to the ONE Campus website to get started.

The University of Mississippi won second place with this videoWe know you’re anxious to find out who won our second challenge. For the past three weeks, students across the country have been living below the poverty line -– on $1.50 per day -– to draw attention to the famine in the Horn of Africa. This was not an easy challenge, but we were blown away with the results. We received dozens of photos, blog posts, diaries and video clips chronicling the struggle that more than 1.4 billion people around the world endure each day. Even more impressive: students logged more than 500 phone calls and more than 1,000 letters to their members of Congress urging them to support smart programs that are saving lives.

So who won? The University of Florida really locked things up with an impressively poignant Tumblr blog post and calls and letters to their members of Congress. The University of Mississippi came in a close second with their great video, and tying for third was the University of Texas at El Paso and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. We had more than 20 different campuses competing, so head to our Tumblr to check out more of our favorite submissions -– and remember, with a month left of the first phase of our challenge, it’s still anyone’s game.