A Note to Mrs. Obama

Dear Mrs. Obama,

Thanks for your recent note regarding your new program to help fight child obesity, Let’s Move. I’m very pleased you are taking up this issue and hope that many different citizens and groups help you in this effort.

I wanted to make a suggestion on your outreach that involves geography, something your husband used very effectively in his campaign last year. My housemate went up to New Hampshire on Election Day to knock on doors to provide rides to who needed a lift to the polls. They had detailed lists and maps of who needed help.

When I signed up to receive e-mails from the White House I was asked to provide my ZIP Code. That was a great idea; I hoped (and still do) the administration would use it to send pertinent information about national issues related to my local area. So I was rather surprised this morning to read my local paper (The Somerville Journal) and learn that my Mayor, Joe Curtatone, participated in your press conference last week about Let’s Move. Our city, and its partnership with Tufts University in the “Shape Up Somerville” program, are a model for the program you are launching. It would have meant a lot to me and those in neighboring towns to have known about that from your e-mail.

By the way, I wear my Shape Up Somerville T-shirt I received at a 5K race a few years ago quite a lot. It features two children on it: one jumping rope and one eating a banana; it’s very cool.

Thanks for your time.

Adena
Somerville, Massachusetts