Eighteen months ago, the last thing on Dan Wagner's mind was the millions of people suffering from extreme poverty and disease in Africa.

But after watching a simulcast in which U2 front man Bono spoke on behalf of the ONE Campaign, which seeks to promote international aid, the Franklin & Marshall College men's soccer coach was ready to roll up his sleeves and get involved.

And he took his team along for the ride — literally.

"I kept thinking, 'What do I have to give? How can I join the fight?' " Wagner said.

"I thought about it for a couple of weeks and then it came to me — what if our soccer team adopted a village in Africa? About a year later, I found myself at the Johannesburg airport."

As a nod to Wagner's efforts, the ONE campaign chose F&M for the launch of "ONE Vote '08" in Pennsylvania. The statewide campaign is part of a nonpartisan national grassroots effort to encourage both presidential candidates to address the issues of poverty, hunger and diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the world's poorest countries.

Co-chairing ONE Vote '08 in Pennsylvania are former senators and one-time political rivals Rick Santorum, a Republican, and Harris Wofford, a Democrat, who were on hand for Monday's kickoff.

In March, Wagner and 28 team members traveled to Khayelitsha Township, located on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa.

The team partnered with Grassroot Soccer, an organization that utilizes soccer to teach African children life skills in an effort to reduce the transmission of HIV.

During a weeklong stay, the team held soccer clinics for children ages 8-14 and played matches against local men's semi-pro and club teams to attract interest in the program and generate enrollment.

"They play soccer, they love soccer in Africa, they love anyone who plays soccer," Wagner said. "This is how much they love it: We were expecting 90 kids for the first clinic and you know how many we got? Four hundred. There was an electricity that is hard to explain."

F&M also embarked on a project to construct a playing field in Khayelitsha Township that is expected to be completed in two weeks. A clubhouse is planned that will be used for educational purposes. It will be named the Chris Campbell Memorial Facility, in honor of team member Chris Campbell, who passed away while jogging at his home several months before the trip.

"We'd like to use that facility as a means of maintaining a lifeline between F&M and Khayelitsha," Wagner said.

Former team member and recent F&M graduate Ryan McGonigle is in Khayelitsha as an intern, overseeing the project and working with Grassroot Soccer.

Wagner said he and the team have raised $350,000 to date — F&M was a major donor — which paid for the trip and building the field. He hopes to raise another $30,000 to build the clubhouse.

F&M President John Fry commended Wagner's efforts Monday and said he's "one of our best. We're very proud of him and his team and proud to be a part of this."

In their remarks, both Wofford and Santorum stressed that the need to address global disease and extreme poverty transcends political parties.

"No country has been blessed by God more than ours, and there's an obligation that comes with those gifts," Santorum said. "And it's an obligation that knows no political party."

E-mail: jtodd@lnpnews.com