With a mother as a former rally cat and a father as a civil engineering graduate from Clemson, senior Adrienne Rankin didn’t have much of a choice when it came to deciding where to go to college.
She started coming to Clemson games right out of the womb. But as a tiny toddler dressed in orange at a football game, no one could have predicted the impact she would make when she came to Clemson.
An English major from Johnsonville, S.C., Rankin spends most of her time at Clemson working with Gamma Sigma Sigma, the service sorority, and is the president of the ONE Campaign, an organization that raises awareness about issues of global poverty, preventable disease and hunger.
“I joined both of these organizations because I am really interested in service, and by participating in these groups, I can help others on a local and international level,” Rankin said.
As the president of the ONE Campaign, Rankin is in charge of multiple aspects of the organization and has many responsibilities, but all of the hard work is worth it to her.
“The combination of the friendships I am building and the good work to which we are all committed keeps me constantly excited about the organization,” she said.
The most rewarding part of it is the fact that she is actually making a real difference in people’s lives.
Last spring, the organization raised around $700 at a fundraising event and was able to send that money directly to entrepreneurs in developing nations, including a Cambodian pig farmer.
“We’ve been keeping track of their progress, and it’s great to know we made a direct impact on their lives,” Rankin said.
Among many things that the ONE Campaign does, they host Ten Thousand Villages in the fall and ONEart in the spring.
When she is not working on ways to alleviate poverty, Rankin can be found cooking, writing short fiction, or sitting on the armchair by the far window in Java City, her favorite place at Clemson.
In Rankin’s mind, it is every person’s responsibility to do something that betters humanity. And by bettering humanity, she doesn’t necessarily mean things like always recycling or taking the bus to campus.
She just means making the world happier for the individual humans that comprise humanity.
“We’re all in this life thing together, so why not make it the best we can?” she said.
Doing something as simple as giving someone a high-five on the library bridge or telling someone about a place they will never get to visit can better humanity. “It’s all about the little things,” Rankin said. “And it’s fun.”
