Saturday, April 18, was the tenth – annual Earth Gathering Festival at the Historic Pump House Center For The Arts in downtown Chillicothe, Ohio. The event was hosted by the Chillicothe Art League and organized by ONE member Shelly Pocock. The event features earth-friendly art, music, food, products and ideas. The weather was perfect throughout the day, and when all was said and done, Shelly concluded that it was the highest attended and best Earth Gathering Festival so far. ONE Chillicothe participated for the third consecutive year and we focused on Millennium Development Goal number seven: to Ensure environmental sustainability.

We created games and teaching materials from the ONE website on Climate and Development, Agriculture, and Water & Sanitation. We gathered 52 new sign-ups in our small town that has already been declared a “City of ONE” and is ONE saturated. ONE shirts and bands are visible everywhere. The festival got going with a musical line-up that included ONE member, Stacey “Hippie” Skaggs, a very popular and talented acoustic folk artist. Stacey, promoting the cause in her ONE shirt, entertained the crowd with a 10 song set and a pretty cool ONE “rock goddess” pose. From the organizers, to the entertainment, to the participants, ONE Chillicothe members are gathering to get the word out about earth friendliness, extreme poverty and Global disease during the week of Earth Day. For more on this event, visit www.earthgathering.com.

-Chris Cooper, ONE Chillicothe Volunteer Leader

The library at Miami University in Ohio was abuzz on Monday night, but not from studying. The buzz was a group of students meeting to discuss how to end global poverty. This past semester the student group has been incredibly active in making ONE’s presence known on Miami’s campus.

Led by students Megan Casey, Ashley Leonard and Amanda Beckham, ONE Miami has held several events on and off campus. This semester alone Miami students have held events at local bars and concert halls signing up new members. They also hosted the ONE Bus and collaborated with several other student organizations.

There is no doubt that other campuses can model Miami in starting an organization on their campus and quickly become active. Congratulations to all Miami ONE members on all the work you have done! Keep it up!

-Blake Waggoner

Here’s a brief update on some of the exciting activity going on in Ohio

Candidates and campaigns are jockeying in the final days until Election Day to earn votes and get their message across. ONE is also working hard to get our message across to not only voters, but also to the candidates.

Over the past six months, Ohio has become ground zero for the presidential candidates. As the candidates have crisscrossed Ohio, ONE has been there, discussing the issues surrounding global poverty. In the week leading up to the election ONE has been to several McCain and Obama events, each time drawing the attention of the crowd, the media, campaign staff or even the candidate.

While ONE in Ohio will spend the next 48 hours making its presence known, ONE’s work does not end on Election Day. Just last week ONE delivered petitions to the state campaign offices pushing for whoever is elected to keep their promises of ending global poverty.

-Blake Waggoner

It isn’t just college campuses that the ONE Bus rumbles through. Day three of the ONE Bus’ Ohio tour took it to Main Street in Chillicothe. The bus was greeted by several supporters as well as members of one of the most active ONE groups in Ohio.

Drivers on Main Street could not miss the bus, not only because of its size, but also because of the volunteers standing on the street waving ONE signs as they drove by. The bus was joined by the local Obama campaign organizer and a local youth pastor, who spoke on the morality of solving global poverty. Many in the crowd were moved by the youth pastor’s message, and stated that they would be motivated on behalf of ONE Vote ’08 through the election.

-Megan Schweizer

The ONE Bus recently wrapped up a great tour through Ohio. The bus’ first Ohio stop was this past Saturday when it joined a OSU Buckeye football tailgate. Our tailgating neighbors were very enthusiastic about ONE and it wasn’t long before scores of students were standing in front of the ONE Bus cheering, “Buckeyes for ONE!” The event was incredibly successful in signing up hundreds of new ONE members and aising our profile.

The last Ohio stop was Monday and also at OSU, except this time parked right on campus. ONE Vote ’08 State Co-Chairmen and former Congressman John Kasich joined the bus, talked about global poverty and signed up new members. The bus was even greeted by McCain and Obama Ohio campaign staff, who came out to show their support for ONE.

-Megan Schweizer

Last week the Ohio ONE Vote ’08 staff and interns attended an Obama Register for Change event at Columbus State Community College in Columbus, OH. DNC Chairman Howard Dean was there along with Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and actor Kal Penn who plays Kumar in movies such as Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

The trio are touring the country on their way to Denver and encouraging people who are not registered to vote to do so. After the event we had an opportunity to speak with Dean, Klobuchar, and Penn. Dean had very kind words for us and accepted a ONE Vote ’08 t-shirt.

Senator Klobuchar, who recently became a ONE Vote ’08 Co-Chair for Minnesota, proudly told us of her involvement with the ONE Campaign. She was especially excited for this week’s state ONE Vote ‘08 kickoff. Penn, who spoke at length about the great things that young people can accomplish was happy to see us out there talking about how we can make poverty history.

-Nick Casey, OH ONE Field Organizer

Last Thursday ONE Members in Portsmouth Ohio attended a Town Hall Meeting for John McCain. The Senator reiterated his commitment to the ONE Campaign and its issues – and our volunteers were all anxious to have an opportunity to show the Senator their support for fighting extreme poverty around the world.

ONE’s presence at presidential campaign events is nothing new to the campaign trail and we work to have our members and volunteers attend events for both Senator’s Obama and McCain. It wasn’t long after we arrived that we were given an incredibly warm welcome by the McCain staff, thanking us for our continued presence at events.

Shortly after McCain delivered his remarks, he singled out the ONE Vote ‘08 members, asking them to stand and briefly discuss the ONE Campaign and our mission. Before calling on ONE members, McCain stated that we were some of the best citizens of our generation, in that we are working for a cause bigger than ourselves. When asked what his administration would do to combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB, McCain responded by stating that he would increase funding for vaccines and to the World Health Organization.

After McCain’s remarks, ONE members greeted McCain and wife, Cindy, handing them both ONE wristbands. Cindy quickly put her wristband on, telling the ONE members how excited she was to travel to Rwanda with the bi-partisan ONE delegation later this week.

As we were leaving one of the town hall attendees shouted through the crowd, “thanks, and you guys are doing incredible, incredible work.”

-Blake Waggoner- ONE Ohio Field Staff

Our targeted campaign to get key senators to sign the Lugar-Sununu letter to the Senate leadership in support of the $50 billion reauthorization of PEPFAR, America’s primary vehicle for fighting HIV/AIDS in the developing world, continues in Ohio and Missouri.

Last week, ONE members in St. Louis, MO visited Senator Bond’s office to drop off 918 letters from concerned Missourians requesting that Senator Bond add his name to the letter and show his support for immediate action on passing this lifesaving legislation.

And in Ohio, Blake Waggoner (a new ONE Vote ’08 staff member), Ellen Carmichael (a new CARE staff member in Ohio) and I were in downtown Columbus to deliver 1,440 letters to Senator Voinovich’s office!

Want to get involved? Sign up to be a ONE volunteer here: http://action.one.org/contact/volunteer.html

-Katie Andrews

We are writing letters about the Global Child Survival Act and watching Idol Gives Back here in Columbus, Ohio. More ONE members will be coming in later in the night so we’ll have more pictures soon.

-Katie Andrews, Regional Field Organizer

Historically, as we move closer to the general election, campaigns, media and electorate itself, tends to talk a lot more about the horse race and a lot less about the issues.

Today, with critical presidential primaries in four states, I and my many ONE member friends and colleagues must work that much harder to raise the profile for global poverty in this country.

Remember, you can look at the candidate’s plans for global poverty on ONE Action’s On The Record site. If you happen to live in Ohio, Texas, Vermont or Rhode Island, you could consider talking about global poverty while in the voting line.

And, as always, stay tuned for more urgent actions in the days, weeks and months ahead.

-Virginia Simmons