O.A.R.

So I am writing this blog while I am listening to OAR sing “This Town..” at Bucknell in PA. The crowd is going crazy!

There are about 3 thousand people here, fans are up dancing in their seats and in General Admission they are moving like a pulsating amoeba. Yesterday OAR played to a sold out crowd at the University of Delaware. The show before, we were at Wake Forest where Benj rocked his Oxfam shirt on stage. Marc has been giving Oxfam and Reverb a shout out at each show…This is so AWESOME! Earlier today at the town hall meeting we had a great crowd too! About 40 people showed up- Benj and Richard from OAR were there as well as Andy, the lead singer of Virginia Coalition to talk with students about environmental and humanitarian issues and to inspire them to be a positive force on their campus and in their communities. I had a number of people come up to me afterwards and ask me how they can get involved with Oxfam. It is probably the most rewarding thing for me to talk to people who are as passionate about social justice as I am and I am stoked that they are motivated my Oxfam’s mission and message. There are also amazing student groups on the campuses that we are visiting. Here at Bucknell students are organizing something called “bicycles against poverty”, where they collect donations to purchase bikes for a village in Uganda. The school also sends a select group of students to Nicaragua every year to learn about fair trade, and they are currently producing a documentary about their trip. At Wake Forest, Kate who works for Silk, one of the CCT’s sponsor, and I put on hairnets and gloves to volunteered with Campus Kitchens, a student run group that cooks meals for the homeless. I chopped about 10 onions and Kate cut up about 10 loaves of bread for stuffing! Hahahah! It was great fun. On this tour, my intent at each university is to inspire people, but in all honesty, I am leaving inspired by them!
I’ve also been impressed with the volunteers that put on an Oxfam t-shirt and talk to their peers about the good work we are doing. At Wake Forest, we had two Oxfam Change leaders ( Avra and Tomas and two of their friends) who drove for 3 hours to come to the show to do concert outreach in the cold! Ellen, Steven, in Iowa and Jonathan in Alabama too! The OXFAMILY rocks!

Im finishing this blog entry as OAR is playing “crazy game of poker" I think I am going to go down to the floor and join the mass of fans who are freaking out! More later!