ONE members around the country are hitting the presidential campaign trail, engaging and educating the candidates on the fight against extreme poverty for ONE Vote.
Earlier this month, both new and experienced ONE members packed into the hip, downtown Richmond restaurant, C’est Le Vin, for Virginia’s ONE Vote 2012 launch party.
A band from West Africa, Jah Baba, generously donated their time and talents to add some serious fun to the event. With a ONE banner hanging from the front window and Jah Baba’s energetic music wafting out the door, a few people heading elsewhere actually popped into our event! As soon as they entered and saw our eye-catching poster promoting our mission to ensure that no child will born with HIV by 2015, they decided it was worth sticking around for the speakers.
We were honored to be joined by two members of our ONE Vote 2012 National Advisory Committee, Tucker Eskew, former communications director for South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell and former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush for global communications; and Karen Finney, MSNBC political analyst, former DNC communications director, and Clinton Administration deputy press secretary.
Both Eskew and Finney described the positive impact that less than 1 percent of the federal budget has on millions of lives in some of the poorest places on the planet, as well as the bipartisan need to continue the fight against extreme global poverty for both economic and security reasons. The audience was clearly moved by their passionate descriptions of effective American programs they’ve seen in action saving lives. Many people came up to me afterwards to tell me not only how much they enjoyed hearing what Eskew and Finney had to say, but that they didn’t realize the full impact of these American led programs.
The night was a huge success!
We discussed some of the ways folks can help and we’re building our ONE Vote 2012 team in Virginia, so if you want to get involved, please contact me at Ranna.Lanagan@one.org.
