Merry, our oldest, became distraught when she heard about the governor's budget cuts to education. They are distressing--the budget was cut by 50% and the money was reallocated to prisons and to huge incentives for corporations--many of which, by the way, are bleeding our counties dry of their natural resources and not paying any taxes. There's talk of laying off teachers, closing schools, cutting kindergarten, increasing class sizes, slashing benefits like free lunches for kids. Pennsylvania's future, especially for the large percentage of children from less privileged backgrounds, looks bleaker.
We hadn't talked to Merry about the budget cuts, but she found out about them at school and during the week that followed, she became more and more convicted that she should do something. So she wrote this letter, without any help from us. I helped her correct spelling and punctuation errors, and she wrote a final draft, sealed and addressed the envelope, and sent it to our governor. (To read the letter, click on the photo to make it a bit easier on the eyes).
"Do you think he'll read it?" she asked.
"I hope so."
"Well, he should," she said staunchly. Merry, I think he should, too.
