One Campaign Supports Sea to Sea Tour

Feb. 12, 2008—An official with the One Campaign, the global anti-poverty program backed by rock star Bono, said that his organization strongly supports the Christian Reformed Church’s Sea to Sea 2008 Bike Tour.

During a visit to the CRC’s Grand Rapids office, Mark Brinkmoeller said that the One Campaign sees the Sea to Sea tour as a great way to raise awareness of and support for the fight against extreme global poverty—the same issue for which the One Campaign was founded nearly four years ago.

“We are certainly in one camp and appreciate the Christian Reformed Church taking on this issue. Sea to Sea is an important project and we want to support it,” said Brinkmoeller, senior director of policy and coalition development for the One Campaign, which is based in Washington D.C.

Brinkmoeller was in Grand Rapids to learn more about the bike tour and consider how the One Campaign can help draw attention to it. He also wanted to discuss ways in which the One Campaign and the Micah Challenge—a CRC-backed advocacy project—can work together.

The One Campaign was originally founded in 2004 by 11 non-profit and humanitarian organizations with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Although the CRC does not as a denomination officially support the One Campaign, the church and its agencies are very much  in line with its focus and goals, said Peter VanderMeulen, the CRC’s director of social justice.

VanderMeulen said he is pleased that the One Campaign supports Sea to Sea because the organization, made famous by Bono and actors Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, “helps to set the table and raise the awareness level” for the need for churches and other organizations to band together to fight poverty and disease around the world.
Until recently, VanderMeulen was co-chair for the Micah Challenge in the United States. The Micah Challenge is a global Christian campaign that aims to help leaders of rich and poor countries cut global poverty in half by 2015.
The Sea to Sea tour, says VanderMeulen, is one of the practical ways in which the CRC can help the Micah Challenge meet this and other poverty-related targets.

One of the largest bike tours ever to cross the U.S., Sea to Sea hopes to raise $1.5 million to help fight global poverty. More than 200 riders are registered to participate in this summer’s cycling trek, with 128 going the full distance from sea to sea.