Module #2 – Be an Advocate for the Earth Lesson #1 – Write Letters

Letters stand out! Most of us communicate by text or social messaging and hardly anyone ever writes a letter. I mean an actual letter with a stamp on it. Emails are much more common, but everyone gets SO MANY emails that sometimes the important communications get lost.

It’s exciting to go to your mailbox and actually see a letter with your name handwritten on the front.
You have something important to say, so take the time to write the letter in your best handwriting, put an address and stamp on it, and send it to someone connected to your concern. While it might be easy to ignore an email, a handwritten letter is special. The receiver might read the whole thing.

Writing a letter does get attention. If you wrote one to the owner of a company or the President of the United States, someone is going to read it. You might receive a “form letter” reply. That means a standard response letter – and then they insert your name into their form letter and send it back. But someone DOES open the letter and read it. When lots of people write letters about the same issue, those numbers add up! Companies and governments track the numbers of communications they receive and make policy changes based on what people care about.

ACTION:

Choose Your Issue: Get in touch with how you feel about the issue you’ve chosen. Your passion will communicate a lot! Writing a letter is a lot like voting. You are voting for change. Your letter will communicate your beliefs and thoughts.

Figure out the best person to contact: Research who is in charge of making decisions about the issue you care about. What company could have an impact on your concern? What local government would benefit from hearing your thoughts? How about writing letters to your Head-of-School, or other schools? There might be several letters to write.

Get the facts: Do you know what you are talking about? Prove it! Insert statistics in your letter. Write about your life, and why this issue is important to you directly. You will be educating your reader. Be Respectful: When we are clear, honest, and respectful people will listen. You can yell at someone, but that makes someone yell back. If you write from an informed standpoint, listing your concerns, and offering some good ideas to solve the problem, you have a better chance of influencing that person. Offer Solutions: Maybe the person receiving your letter never even knew there was a problem. With your ideas and possible solutions, you might influence them to create changes.

FIND OUT WHO YOUR GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES ARE: Just go to this link. https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials. Don’t forget the President of the United States!

ACTIVITY: Download the Worksheet for Module #2 to learn how to write and send a letter!

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