Block Talks
From Your House to the White House
Okay, here’s the deal:
We are going to spend a quiet evening in with five or six of our neighbors writing a proposal to the president. A two page (500 word) proposal on what we’d like to see. The president will be pleased as punch by this because before writing, we are going to talk to each other. We will give the president a feel for what we are experiencing, neighborhood by neighborhood. This will make our proposals insightful.
While we are talking, we will do something that we like to do. Barebequing, sewing, card games, smoking cigars, drinking lemonade, crafting or fishing or whatever it is that we like. We will hang out with people that maybe we see around all the time and never really talk to about the state of the world. We will have fun. Then we will take part in changing the world.
The president has set up a space for anyone to write to him using the internet. The only limitation is that it must be 500 words or less. That is not as much space as you think, so a lot of the time will be spent making the message fit. It will be a little work at first, but we will get the hang of it with time. The president has set up people to read all of these submissions.
President Obama is genuinely interested in what we think.
So let’s get together and talk about it.
A few rules to get the ball rolling, use them for as long as they serve you.
1. Gather with 5 or 6 people that live around you. Knock on a few doors. Get out there, have fun.
2. Do whatever it is that you and your neighbors like to do. If each Block Talk is at someone else’s house, maybe that person picks what to do. Maybe you will do the same thing (make a dinner, toss a ball) whichever house you are at. The important thing is that you enjoy yourselves and that you can talk while you are doing it.
3. Talk. What are you going to propose? These three questions are a good starting point.
What do you see?
What is it like?
What do you want to see?
4. Each evening ends with a proposal to the president of the United States. President Obama has put a limit of 500 words for each submission, which is about two pages double-spaced. To help with this, someone may want to take notes, or at the end of the night, you can put all of your notes together into one proposal.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
5. If a local leader is more appropriate to send your proposal to, such as your mayor, a school principal, a police captain, then print it out and mail it to them. You may be able to email it to them, a quick trip to google should get you their address.