We Left the ONE Campaign in San Francisco

Mar 15th, 2007 11:00 AM UTC
By Lori Saltveit, ONE member, San Francisco, CA

Last week was busy for ONE volunteers from the Bay Area. To begin, two Saturdays
ago, fellow ONE member Brian Webster and I met to do outreach at the San Francisco
Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. It was a beautiful, sunny day so there were a lot of
people out visiting the market. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, many
people came up to our little table and asked us about the ONE Campaign. Some people
signed the Declaration while some also stuck around for a while to talk about the
issues around extreme poverty.

On Tuesday, we held our monthly ONE Campaign meet-up at Peet’s Coffee in the ferry
building. Although the meeting was held in San Francisco, people came from all over
the Bay Area, including the East Bay and Marin. It was great to have such a great
turnout of 16 people. We spent the majority of the time brainstorming ideas for
future outreach opportunities.

People came up with some really good ideas and I’ll report back as we make them a
reality. Brian rounded out the meeting with a historical perspective of the ONE
Campaign, beginning with the anti-poverty movement after World War II and concluding
with an overview of the Millennium Development Goals.

This past Saturday, Jimmy and Brian (and I think a couple of others) went to the
Farmer’s Market again. Brian reported that Mayor Gavin Newson walked by the table and
gave a “thumbs-up” to the group! In the evening Stefanie, Elaine and I met up for
the Zoo Station Show at 19 Broadway in Fairfax. Zoo Station is a San Francisco based U2
tribute band. I love their stage names – Bonalmost, Adamesque, The Sledge and Barely
Larry. I had been in touch with Zoo Station previously and they were really supportive of
having The ONE Campaign do outreach at their shows. The show was fantastic! They did an
amazing job recreating the spirit and energy of a U2 concert. A few times during the
show Bonalmost brought attention to issues that the ONE Campaign supports.

Most notably to me, during Sunday Bloody Sunday he reminded us about Colin Powell’s quote
in Jeffrey Sach’s book, “The End of Poverty. The quote is “The war against terror is bound
up in the war against poverty”. The crowd was made up of white-banded U2 fans that had
already signed the Declaration but it was good to share ideas with like-minded individuals.
The ONE Campaign volunteers and Zoo Station look forward to more collaboration in the future.

TAGS: The ONE Blog