Ready for Action with Project Opportunity

I just got back from a really exciting and productive meeting of Project Opportunity, which is an organization that I, along with an ’06 (that's what Dartmouth students call seniors because they graduate in 2006), started on campus this fall. The organization is part of a national poverty fighting movement called Opportunity Rocks, which was started on ten college campuses this year by former Senator and Vice Presidential Nominee John Edwards. Charged with fighting poverty in our local area, our group chose to focus our efforts on the lack of affordable housing in the Upper Valley, which is the name of the bi-state (New Hampshire and Vermont) area in which Dartmouth is situated.

In the fall, to kick off the group, Senator Edwards did a two week long tour, visiting each of the schools at which Opportunity Rocks chapters were formed. The amount of work and planning that my co-chair and I put into the Senator’s time here at Dartmouth was unbelievable, and while there were a few days that it seemed more like a full time job, our preparation was worth it, as we had over 500 people in attendance to hear his speech. We even required two overflow spaces. Everyone got to meet Senator Edwards, and I think both students and community members were really inspired by the call to make poverty eradication the cause of our generation. Possibly even better than the speech, however, was the work we did that morning. Before the speech, the Senator and his staff, a group of students, and a number of community members worked with an organization called COVER that does home repair jobs for people who are unable, for various reasons, to perform these tasks. It was great to see everyone so involved and working so hard to help out!

Following the kickoff, my co-chair and I spent most of the rest of fall term and the beginning of this term (Dartmouth follows a year-round quarter system, which is why we call them terms) planning the group’s next steps. We have developed a two-fold mission for the group and hope to address the affordable housing issue through both direct community service and through awareness, advocacy and policy work. At the meeting tonight, we brainstormed a ton of cool projects with our members, and the energy flowing through the room was quite apparent! After much dicussion, we have decided to focus our current work on a “Faces of Affordable Housing” visual awareness campaign. Everyone seemed really excited about this project! In addition to the community service we hope to do regularly once the weather is better, this project should get everyone really engaged in the issues and provide our members with the knowledge base to become true advocators for affordable and workforce housing in the Upper Valley. I can’t wait to actually get started with the project and see where it takes us!