ONE California has a big reason to celebrate!
ONE volunteers Paul Avion and Betsy Avila (ONE USC) have just announced that on January 14, 2009, Los Angeles approved and signed a resolution to become a City of ONE.
The resolution, signed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council President Eric Garcetti, and seconded by ALL 16 council members, concluded as follows:
“NOW THEREFORE IT BE RESOLVED, that by adoption of this resolution, the Los Angeles City Council along with the Mayor, City Attorney and City Controller do hereby declare Los Angeles to be a ‘CITY OF ONE’ and encourage everyone to recognize the devastating impact extreme poverty and global AIDS have around the world and take action to bring about change.
“I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing resolution was adopted by the City of Los Angeles at its meeting held January 14, 2009.”
These signatures make Los Angeles the latest in some 120+ cities who have signed the ONE resolution, meant to further awareness of the extreme poverty and preventable disease that continues to affect ONE billion people.
The resolution was passed due to the efforts of volunteer Avion, who has been in contact with Mayor Villaraigosa’s office since September, 2008. (And is currently working with Governor Schwarzenegger’s office to have California declared a State of ONE.)
This exciting opportunity was entrusted to him by 2008 SoCal Field Organizer Betsy Avila, whose encouragement and guidance he credits with having made it possible. The resolution was also made possible by the work of Cecilia Cabello, Legislative Deputy of the Office of Council President Eric Garcetti, who believed in the resolution and guided it internally to realization. (Everyone at ONE thanks you, Cecilia.)
Volunteer Paul Avion (whose band Par Avion is an upcoming SPIN.com pick), is also actively engaged in creating fashion-music shows to help support ONE in the Los Angeles area. A recent fashion-music show was featured in the ONE blog on August 28th.
(http://www.one.org/blog/2008/08/28/one-at-the-echo-on-sunset/)
More about his efforts to combine music, fashion and charity can be found at www.brightlightsla.com, and through the ONE Los Angeles blog, onecampaignla.wordpress.com/.
Congratulations to the entire ONE L.A. Team and ONE USC!
- Paul Avion, Betsy Avila and ONE@USC
