All it takes is one mouse click from Marquette students to fight poverty around the world.

The Oxfam America Collegiate Click Drive kicked off on www.PovertyFighters.com last month, putting college students' computer-happy fingers to good use — with each click, 25 cents is donated to help put a stop to world poverty.

More than 75 colleges are registered with the drive in a national competition between schools to see who can raise the most money for the cause. As of March 26, Marquette was in third place, with a total of $1,962.50 in donations.

Now in the drive's final week, Marquette students have their last chance to point and click.

Whenever someone clicks on the PovertyFighters Web site, corporate sponsors donate money to charities around the world, said Adam Mescher, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences and Click Drive organizer for Marquette. The sponsorship process, known as microcrediting, "gives poor people a hand up" by loaning them money to start their own businesses.

The brainchild of Andy Laties and Philip Heinrich, PovertyFighters.com is a growing online community that seeks to give poor families the chance they need to work out poverty.

"When you click the button on PovertyFighters.com, you see a couple of ads from our partners who promise to invest money into loans to very poor women that they'll be using for launching and running small family businesses," said Laties, co-founder and chief executive officer of the Web site. "It's such an incredibly powerful method for people to escape poverty."

According to Laties, PovertyFighers.com puts a special emphasis on women in Third World countries.

"So much flows from people having a tiny business instead of having to beg or sell their children into bondage or work for an abusive boss in a sweatshop," Laties said. "The positive repercussions of letting groups of poor women work together to maximize the benefit of access to some business capital are enormous. It's totally different than just giving them some food when they're starving. This lets them build a new life for themselves, together."

"I think it's so simple," Mescher said. "We often think the problems of the world are far too large for us to tackle on our own. The Click Drive simplifies that. We don't realize it, but people that are disadvantaged are very similar to us. We can help them simply from clicking."

It is this spirit of giving that Mescher embodies that has inspired other students to click.

"There's a group of students that has a lot of fervor for the drive," said Ryan Grusenski, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. "They have inspired me. It takes but a moment to click."

With such a good response in Marquette's first year of participating in the Click Drive, Mescher said he expects good things in the years to come.

"Click away," Mescher said. "We had a good rookie season. Let's see if we can blow people away next year."