Washington, DC – The ONE Campus Challenge is storming college campuses across the country for the second year in a row as students work to earn the right to declare themselves the most effective poverty-fighting student body in the country. The rallying cry of this year’s ONE Campus Challenge is “GAME ON(e)!”, encouraging students to win victories for the world’s poorest people and become a player in the movement to make poverty history at ONE.org.

“Winning a game is about the score, winning in life is about making the world a better place,” said New England Patriots Quarterback and ONE supporter Tom Brady. “The ONE Campus Challenge is one way to make a difference in the lives of others and ‘Game On’ is the rallying cry for students to get involved. In a big game, a championship might be on the line. In the ONE Campus Challenge, lives are on the line. The efforts students put forth to advance the fight against extreme poverty and disease around the world will save lives.”

Brady’s video helping to kick-off the ONE Campus Challenge may be viewed here.

Tom Brady has been an active supporter of ONE since 2005, when he became the onea millionth member of the ONE Campaign. He traveled to Africa with ONE in 2007 to see the effects of AIDS and extreme poverty on people living in Ghana and Uganda, as well as how lives are being saved and communities stabilized in those countries thanks to the hard work of Africans and the support of American contributions to important initiatives such as PEPFAR and the Global Fund.

The second-ever ONE Campus Challenge resumes today after more than 25,000 students fought it out in the first ONE Campus Challenge, taking more than 182,000 poverty-fighting actions during the 2007-2008 school year. The ONE Campus Challenge (OCC) is a student-led effort by the ONE Campaign to get college students asking America’s elected leaders to move extreme poverty and preventable disease to the top of their agenda. The OCC occurs in three different stages, with students fighting it out each step of the way using creative and effective ideas to get fellow students involved in the movement to make extreme poverty history.

“Students, get ready,” advised David Lane, President and CEO of the ONE Campaign. “We’ve seen how intense this competition gets and the only limit is your drive and creativity. Last year, Western Kentucky won the OCC by being an unstoppable force, recruiting almost 3,000 students to ONE, writing letters and placing calls to Members of Congress, and reaching out to student groups and the Bowling Green community to join them in the movement. The first OCC last year was a lot of fun and a huge success. This year is going to be bigger and better in every way. The ONE Campaign thrives off your energy and drive – go show us how it should be done.”

During the 2007-2008 school year, Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green earned top honors. WKU used their grant to transform the campus into an educational center and rally students to fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease during an intensive 24-hour period. In one day, the WKU Hilltoppers wrote over 300 letters to lawmakers in Washington in support of legislation addressing the root causes of extreme poverty. On that same day, almost 2,000 WKU students signed the ONE declaration asking our nation’s leaders to come up with additional solutions to these issues. The effort concluded with a bang as more than 300 students gathered with Western Kentucky’s president and the mayor of Bowling Green to bring attention to the conditions of extreme poverty around the world and what WKU students can do to make a difference.

The ONE Campaign swooped onto WKU’s campus in late April to congratulate the Hilltoppers on their outstanding effort, putting on a concert featuring

special video messages from Bono, co-founder of the ONE Campaign, and Chris Daughtry, lead singer of the band DAUGHTRY, as well as performances by Army of Me and Georgie James. More than 600 students joined WKU’s ONE Chapter to celebrate the campus’ success.

“Students have always been key players in igniting change. We saw it last year when the International Monetary Fund finally followed through on its promise to cancel Liberia’s debt after students sent an enormous amount of requests asking the IMF to honor its promise,” said Maisie Pigeon, ONE’s Student Coordinator. “The sky is the limit when it comes to what students involved with the ONE Campus Challenge can accomplish this year.”

Maisie is no stranger to the ground game involved with the OCC. She was formerly a Regional Outreach Ambassador for ONE for the Southeast region. In that role, Maisie worked with students to make the OCC a success on campuses across the region.

During the 2008 fall semester, students will receive emails announcing new weekly challenges. The weekly challenges are one way for students to win points and earn their place as one of the top poverty-fighting campuses in the U.S. Points are awarded as students find original ways to involve their schools and communities to address the problems of extreme poverty and preventable disease. In the past, students have held educational debates on campus, created original videos and rallied their campus to support key legislation with letters and phone calls to members of Congress.

In February 2009, students from the top one hundred schools will be invited to the Power 100 Summit, an elite student summit where representatives from the top schools gather in Washington, D.C., for an intensive program to learn about factors that contribute to extreme poverty and what Americans can do to help. Last year’s Power 100 Summit featured speakers such as Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Gene Sperling, Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Paul Begala, political contributor and Democratic strategist on CNN’s The Situation Room..

After the February summit, students have just a few weeks to apply their knowledge and new skills to earn points to secure their place among the top ten schools. The ONE Chapter at each of the top ten schools will be awarded a $1000 grant to build an exciting and engaging poverty-fighting program on campus. Students are encouraged to bring other school groups, school administrators, local and national leaders into this program and utilize all of their talents to produce fresh ideas. All ONE Campus Challenge participants will have the opportunity to vote on the ultimate winner of the OCC from the top ten schools. That winning school will be rewarded with a grand prize performance on campus.

The OCC encourages students to develop ONE Chapters on their campuses to ensure that their work is rooted deeply into the campus culture. The 2007-2008 OCC touched more than 1400 schools across the country. As many as 1250 of these schools signed up in the first 24 hours. To participate, sign up at one.org/campus <http://www.one.org/campus> .

The ONE Campaign is a global organization uniting millions of people to press government leaders to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease around the world. For more information, visit www.ONE.org