An Email from a Friend

A wonderful friend of mine sent me this... I will post my reply later. If you'd like to participate, feel free to email your replies to me (ms.frizzle@gmail.com) and I will pass them along to her.

Dear Friends,

In the wake of the election sorrow, I have decided to do something. I don't know yet what all I am going to do, but I have a little project to help me figure it out-- and I would be MUCH obliged if you could help me by replying to this email (even a little bit).

Please tell me what two or three issues you care the most about.

Then, tell me what you plan to do in the next six weeks toward one (or more) of those issues.

If you have a long-term dream of how you would make the world a better place too, I'd love to know... a project you could do that will create a larger good. If you don't have one, don't let it stop youfrom responding!

The goals:
1) A reminder to not just talk, but to act-- even if it's in small ways: and to start now-- today, this week (why wait?) with a specific plan.
2) A collection of ideas to remind us all how many ways there are to act (I'll send you a list of everyone's ideas if you tell me you'd like to get it in a week or so)
3) Hope

I'll go first (that's only fair):
My three top issues: the environment, sexual assault, and education

What I'm going to do:

• This: remind the people in my life not to sit in saddened silence!!!
• Volunteer to teach an English class once a week -- speaking English is a huge first step toward getting US citizenship-- and there are many, many people I spoke to door-to-door on election day who would have loved to vote -- almost all for Kerry-- but weren't registered to vote, or weren't citizens.
• Put a reminder on my calendar to check twice a month to see what issues are being voted on in Congress*-- and take three minutes to call my senators or representative and make my opinion heard (you can do this long-distance for free if you have Working Assets phone service-- calls to your congress(wo)men are free)

* Wondering how? For unbiased info, go to www.congress.gov (more helpful when congress is in session). For a wealth of variously biased, well-organized info, go to www.congress.org.

And my long-term dream? Work in the West in environmental conflict resolution... and someday maybe be a high school principal.

There. It only took me a few minutes to come up with that... and I didn't even know what I was going to say when I started. I look forward to hearing from you!