Dear President Obama

Sharece Michelle Bunn
Dayton, Oregon 97114

July 19, 2012

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

Hey. How’s it going? I’m writing not to just say hello or tell you what I think of your policies or the campaign, but to ask you for a job. I know. You’re concerned about the way things are headed and you’re not even sure if you’re going to have a job at the end of the year. For record, I am going to vote for you. I voted for you the first time and I want to see you finish the work you started.

Now, back to the real reason I’m writing. I need a job. That’s right. I, like the other 12.7 million Americans, am out of work. Why am I special? You ask. Well, President Obama. I’m a regular girl with a really great education, a plethora of varied job experiences, and about $60,000 in school debt to my name. I know that some really great people are working to pass legislation to help lower the student debt situation but it requires the 10/10 rule. I’ve been out of undergrad for seven years. That should have been plenty of time to pay off my debt except that I really listened in my history courses in college and I followed the path so many great men and women followed in the 1960s. I joined the Peace Corps and went to Ukraine for twenty-six months. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the experience, but when I came home to the states, I wanted to spend time with my family and my family just doesn’t live in the part of America where there are a lot of jobs for returned Peace Corps Volunteers with English degrees. I did what any smart person would do. I moved in with my parents are started working at the low-income school I attended as a child as an instructional assistant. You see, even though I spent two years teaching in Ukraine with the Peace Corps, in Oregon, I wasn’t a real teacher. I had to assist in every classroom even though many of the teachers made me write my own lesson plans and lead small groups without their permission. I wasn’t allowed to work as a teacher in Oregon. It was ok. I went to graduate school at the University of Oregon to study journalism. I studied it all. I grew frustrated by the ethics class that showed me that some of my fellow students would let tragedies happen so they could get the story. I changed my focus and worked to take as many social media, public relations, and other aspects of communications as I could before I graduated. It worked. I took a lot of classes.

Then I started working on my final project paper that was about my small town in Oregon. I moved back to Dayton where I worked at the school again and researched and wrote every day after school. By the time I graduated in December, I felt connected to the school again. I’m not the type of person who gives up or leaves in the middle of a project. I needed to finish my challenging year. You see, I worked in a self-contained classroom with children with autism and other severe disabilities. I wasn’t trained in this field, but I was curious about it. I wanted to learn what was going on in their heads and how I could help and make things better. It was a challenge and I still don’t know everything about how to help people with autism, but I think that year helped me grow stronger in my mind and heart. As that year was ending, I got recruited to join Peace Corps Response in Ukraine. I went to Ukraine where I worked at Ternopil National Pedagogical University. It was a great and very challenging year. I accomplished a lot and felt that I was again making a difference. I started looking for jobs at the end of that year, but my search really began when I landed in the US. I have since applied for over fifty jobs. I have not been hired yet. How is it that a well-educated, middle-class white girl with three years of service to her country can’t find a job? I really don’t get this. That’s why I’m writing to you. Like I said, I’m a well-educated, middle-class white girl and I need a job. Preferably, I would like to work in the communications department, but honestly, I would take any job you could give me.

Thanks a lot, Obama.

Sincerely,

Sharece M. Bunn