On this Sunday morning, we are looking at White House mailroom letters NY Times article from January 17th – “To Obama With Love, and Hate, and Desperation“; also included is the link to WhiteHouse.gov for steps to follow for whether writing either email or snail mail to President Trump; and I conclude with #InCoWriMo is right around the corner – beginning this Wednesday!
The article by Jeanne Marie Laskas goes into a lot of detail of the White House mailroom and how they processed “…about 10,000 letters and messages every day..” ending up with selecting Ten Letters A Day LADs that would be given to President Obama to read.
It conveyed the difference making the time to write as an individual can make, and that they strived to present a true “sampling”.
When I printed The New York Times Magazine article this past week it is 24 pages long! Given it is Sunday and the entire day ahead for us, the article is worth making the time to read – either print or just read from your mobile device or laptop.
The article includes describing how the handling of constituent mail to the President has varied over the years and that “President Obama was the first to come up with a deliberate and explicit practice of 10 letters every day. If the president was home at the White House (he did not tend to mail when he traveled), he would be reading constituent mail, …” This practice was done during his entire eight years.
You’ll read about the categories they would use for marking in pencil while sorting and reading the mail. It was a very thorough and thoughtful process involved and describes how the “Office of Presidential Correspondence – “O.P.C.” would then reduce down to several hundred, and then down to 20 and then to end up with 10LADs. And the process included even the sequencing of arranging the order in which the letters were to be read.
Towards the end of the article, it shares how “the team has handed over all the transition materials – pages and pages explaining O.P.C. procedures – to Trump’s transition team.” The “O.P.C.” “… required the orchestration of 50 staff members, 36 interns and a rotating roster of 300 volunteers to keep up with about 10,000 letters and messages every day.”
Writing the White House
Over at the WhiteHouse.gov site, it shares the steps – Write a letter to the President – to follow for writing to President Trump – with either email or snail mail.
Getting ready for #InCoWriMo
February 1st is right around the corner this Wednesday! I’m already getting my envelopes, stamps, stationery all gathered, have begun addressing envelopes and putting on stamps to be ready with all in order. It will be a very busy month! In case you missed it, my January 17th blog post talked about the International Correspondence Writing Month – #InCoWriMo – with the goal of writing “One a day. Every day. February.” Perhaps you will consider participating in this too!
Thank you for joining me today for White House Mailroom Letters NY Times article. Join me tomorrow for my Monday blog post kicking off a new week. In the meantime, here’s to a great day ahead!
Anchors Aweigh, Helen
White House Mailroom Letters NY Times article Attribution & Thank you to the following who are referenced today
Image upper left. © Igor Zakharevich | Dreamstime.com – Open mailbox with letters
The New York Times Magazine – To Obama With Love, and Hate, and Desperation. “Over eight years, through millions of letters, the staff of the White House mailroom read the unfiltered story of a nation.”
Link Write a letter to the President WhiteHouse.gov
Image InCoWriMo Twitter logo @InCoWriMo
AnchoredScraps.com blog post: Upcoming InCoWriMo February 2017 January 17, 2017, written by Helen Rittersporn
