December 9th; #ONErocksDC White House Day

Taken from my Google+:

Called it a night a bit early tonight. It has been a long day of learning and roaming the beautiful Capital City. I have honestly come to love this city so much. It is such a amazing, lively place all the time, so much different than Chicago. The buildings are a ton smaller so you can always see the sky and the people are all so friendly... and politics is spoken all the time (one of the forbidden things to speak of with people). 

With that being said, today was an early morning, up at 5 am. We began by grabbing a quick breakfast and then ran right to the East Wing entrance. We were met by Secret Service who opened the barriers to us, we went through security and were finally on our way in! 








When we got in the first thing was the smell, pine scent. The East Wing was decorated with countless Christmas Trees and wreaths. We had about 45 minuets to navigate through the weaving path of the East Wing tour. There were countless portraits and paintings all around the area we were in, including the ever so famous George Washington portrait and John F. Kennedy portrait. Walking through the East Wing, we were able to see the Red Room and many others. One really cool part was that when the tours were over for the day there was going to be a White House Christmas Party; which means that the Secret Service had to pull all the rugs, clean them, put them back out, remove all the boundaries and had to have it already for when the Christmas Party began. Towards the end of the tour I heard a couple familiar names behind me, Mike and Erin from ONE Campus. These are the people behind everything that I do on the ground. It was great to meet the people who were behind all the emails and helped me so much getting ONE Campus started at Illinois State University. Then also saw Maura as well, we reminisced about our adventures in the summer. Finally we left the White House out 
the front doors that made for more great photo ops. 

Inside the EEOB

After the White House we moved over to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building which is located on the side of the White House to have some briefings from some officials in the administration. Our first speaker was a quick introduction from Karen Richardson who is the Associate Director from the Office of Public Engagement. 

Then came a great talk from Aaron Williams, the Director of the Peace Corps. This was especially great because it is something I am very passionate about and really want to join. Director Williams thanked us countless times for the service we do for the worlds poorest. 

Jon Carson talking to us about Twitter and asking
us to do a Twitter Q&A with him

After Director Williams we met with the Senior Director for Development and Democracy, Gayle Smith, who has long championed our work. She touched on projects that are currently under way and future projects that will be worked on. We then had a last minuet speaker come in for a quick thank you. 

The Communication Director, Tom Gavin, came and spoke quickly as he was passing by. Director Gavin is a long champion and former Senior Director of Communication at ONE. This was such a great experience, we had people from the administration hear that we were in town, had a meeting, and decided to stop by and thank us; even if they were not apart of the speaker series. 

Our final speaker was the Assistant to the Administrator of the Bureau for Food Security at USAID, Paul Weisenfeld. This was a great speaker who spoke on the current work in securing food in famine ridden areas in the Horn of Africa and creating secure food sources for future generations in the countries that have been hit the most. Somalia was a main topic in this talk because of the issue of sustaining food and having it not be stockpiled by the terrorist and extremists in the country. 

Once we were all wrapped up with all our speakers we had to rush back to one of the buildings near the White House, on Jackson Place, in order to eat our lunch. This made for a very eventful time, me and some of the other members stayed back and talked a little bit and so we were a bit late. While we were walking our way from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building we were walking towards the White House which was about a block from the Jackson Place building we were supposed to be in. This was when things turned very strange, Secret Service were blocking our way and screaming for us to keep walking if we want to get into our building. We needed to hustle down the street and make sure we could all get in. We had a line out the door waiting for Secret Service to check us into our building and finally they gave up and told us to cram inside the building and shut the door or get off Jackson Place. Since we are ONE and we don't leave anyone behind we crammed into the entrance of the building and shut the door. One of the Secret Service officers told us there was an unexpected Presidential Motorcade coming down the street. This was just one more reason to love Washington D.C., always something unexpected happening and couldn't have enjoyed the hustle and bustle any more than I did today. 

After our boxed lunch we had chance to make a choice between hearing from one of three speakers; Global health talk (State Department Staff), trade talk (US Trade Representative staff) or, the one I chose: Bruce Wharton who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary at U.S. Department of State Bureau of African Affairs who spoke to us on Africa specifically. This speaker was more of a short speech and then a Q & A that followed. He began by telling us the 5 pillars of US policy; support African institutions, create economic institution, prevent conflict, health care, and issues within transcending boarders. We were told that an African is most likely to be a 19 year old African businesswoman; this shows us we are dealing with a young audience. He then moved onto our biggest issues which are the Somalis humanitarian crisis, the drought that is happening (in which the US has about 1/3 - 1/2 the total donations). He also spoke firmly that this IS an issue of national security and that there are very few people who actually would want zero funding for foreign aid if they knew the facts. We brought up a couple questions in relation to him talking about China taking on some of the aid given to Africa and the repercussions of them doing so. Mr. Wharton assured us that there is no 'competition' with the US and China in relation to Africa; China deals more in the infrastructure and we deal with more politics and business. Essentially, we are both cogs in this system of fighting poverty. He wrapped up with us and I was able to go up and introduce myself to him and then move on with my day.

We were then finally done for the whole day in relation to ONE. We all left and made our way to the White House for one last group picture and to say our final goodbyes to all the great colleagues and friends met at our #ONErocksDC trip. This was a sad moment, even though it was only two days, because I didn't want it to end at all. 

I went back to the hotel and changed into my night gear and hit the town with Tzviatko and Aly. We roamed the D.C. area and made our way to China Town to get some food. After decided one restaurant was too expensive, we settled with the $6.95 dinner special at another one. This might not have been our best decision of the trip, but was fun none-the-less. 

After dinner, on Maura's recommendation, we made our way to the Washington Mall. We walked the whole mall just talking and taking some pictures at the Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, and then ended at the Lincoln Memorial. This was a great scenic end to a great night. We cabbed our way over to the Capital Bar and Grill to grab a drink and then just head back to our hotel.

December 8th; #ONErocksDC Capital Hill

Taken from my Google+:


This day has been very eventful, we had some very successful meetings with our three representatives and our two congressmen. We started the morning with a quick briefing from ONE employees, pediatricians from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Vice President of the Truman National Security Project. The last, Truman National Security Project, really caught my attention because I learned a lot from the Vice President and a former veteran, Michael Been, who knows first hand the power of foreign aid in Iraq and around the world. This was a topic I had not known much about and it was good to learn more first hand. 

After this we ran over to Capital Hill and began our meeting with Rep. Judy Biggert's office. This was quite an interesting beginning to our first lobbying because the Legislative Assistant was very engaged and asked pressing questions to us. He didn't really put up a 'fight' but was interested in learning more in an area that might not have thought much about. 

Afterwards we ran right over to Rep. Robert Dold's office where we meet with Communication Director of his office who was very warm and welcoming to us, we actually had a 'guest' (one of ONE Member Tzviatko Chiderov's friend) who works in the office sit in on the meeting and ask questions and advocate a bit with us. Rep. Dold is one of our constituents that really feels strongly on the thoughts of ending extreme poverty and understanding how effective these programs are and to continue them. 

When we finished up there we went to my districts office, Rep. Adam Kinzinger. This meeting was one that I thought wouldn't go as well as it did. We met with his Legislative Assistant (Rep Kinzinger was actually on the House floor when we were in the office which was a bit ironic) who warmed up to me when I said I lived in Normal and he was from Normal as well. Rep. Kinzinger has a different form of Republicanism that focuses on finding what programs work and what don't. We gave some information that shows first hand that these programs do work and they are needed, he agreed to an extent and said he would give this along to the Congressman. 


This then finished up our Congresspeople we had to meet with (there were only three of us from Illinois so we hit our constituents!) so we moved onto our Senators, whose meetings were totally different than the Congress meetings. 

First was Sen. Dick Durbin whose staff was extremely nice to us. We joked that we were 'preaching to the choir' about the issues. Sen. Durbin is a great help on all things ONE related, he has championed them before and will continue to. This was a great meeting of the minds. We met with his Legislative Correspondent (once again, ironically he was on the floor, but of the Senate, while we were in his office) and she couldn't have been more open to us and thanked US for the work we do before we had a chance to thank HIM! 

Our second Senator was Mark Kirk whose office was just as helpful as Sen. Durbin. We had a bit of a delay waiting for our meeting but when we got in it was just like the previous office. We met with a Legislative Correspondent who was very helpful. Sen. Kirk is a Republican but understands how importantly foreign aid is, as well as how little is funded for it. Sen. Kirk has seen the effectiveness of the foreign aid and has worked with many bills that have helped fighting extreme poverty, and we are told he will continue to!


Finally we were done with all out lobbying and went to our 'happy-hour' meet and greet with other ONE Members. This was a blast, me and Tzviatko hung out and had some typical bar food just chatting and getting to know each other more. We socialized with other ONE Members who came from 21 other states.


This was only day one in D.C. and I love it already. Tomorrow will be our White House East Wing tour and then off to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building where we will hear from some great speakers from either PEPFAR, Global Health or Trade talks. One more day of great times, then back to hitting the books!