ONE Webster makes poverty history
Issue date: 3/26/09 Section: Opinion/Editorial
The Journal congratulates Webster ONE on its outstanding efforts in poverty eradication. The group's achievements have been recognized on a national scale by the ONE Campus Challenge, which this month listed the chapter among the top ten in the country.
The final project to be undertaken by the WU chapter before the national organization declares a winner took place as this issue of The Journal was going to press. And though the official ONE verdict was unavailable, our staff passed its own judgement: ONE Webster takes the prize for the change it has affected on campus.
At a university that sometimes seems plagued by student apathy, ONE Webster inspired more than 100 students to make phone calls to Missouri's U.S. Sens. Kit Bond (R) and Claire McCaskill (D) as part of its "Call Out Hunger Campus Takeover" March 24. Encouraged by ONE Webster's enthusiastic campus leadership, 107 WU students spent their Tuesday night, not vegging out in front of the TV or even busying themselves with the more noble pursuit of academics, but flooding the senators' offices with calls pleading for the passage of the Global Food Security Act, which would extend U.S. aid to foreign nations experiencing food crises and struggling to sustain their agriculture sectors.
Impressive, to say the least.
Perhaps even more impressive, though, is the group's short history at WU. ONE Webster hit the ground running when it started up just under two years ago. Its increasingly hard-to-ignore presence on campus earned it a spot among the nation's top 20 chapters in its first year alone.
The group's leadership has a tenacity that too many others on campus lack, with chapter President Nick Stevens receiving recognition for his work this week, placing at the top of a list of national semi-finalists competing for a spot on a ONE delegation to Kenya this summer. Stevens and others are redefining WU's conceptions of activism.
Congratulations, ONE Webster - no matter what place you ultimately finish in, you truly have succeeded in making "extreme poverty history."
The final project to be undertaken by the WU chapter before the national organization declares a winner took place as this issue of The Journal was going to press. And though the official ONE verdict was unavailable, our staff passed its own judgement: ONE Webster takes the prize for the change it has affected on campus.
At a university that sometimes seems plagued by student apathy, ONE Webster inspired more than 100 students to make phone calls to Missouri's U.S. Sens. Kit Bond (R) and Claire McCaskill (D) as part of its "Call Out Hunger Campus Takeover" March 24. Encouraged by ONE Webster's enthusiastic campus leadership, 107 WU students spent their Tuesday night, not vegging out in front of the TV or even busying themselves with the more noble pursuit of academics, but flooding the senators' offices with calls pleading for the passage of the Global Food Security Act, which would extend U.S. aid to foreign nations experiencing food crises and struggling to sustain their agriculture sectors.
Impressive, to say the least.
Perhaps even more impressive, though, is the group's short history at WU. ONE Webster hit the ground running when it started up just under two years ago. Its increasingly hard-to-ignore presence on campus earned it a spot among the nation's top 20 chapters in its first year alone.
The group's leadership has a tenacity that too many others on campus lack, with chapter President Nick Stevens receiving recognition for his work this week, placing at the top of a list of national semi-finalists competing for a spot on a ONE delegation to Kenya this summer. Stevens and others are redefining WU's conceptions of activism.
Congratulations, ONE Webster - no matter what place you ultimately finish in, you truly have succeeded in making "extreme poverty history."
Be the first to comment on this story