About a week before my first day on the job at Sojourners, a very exciting piece of news made its way around the office: Barack Obama had worked out at the gym across the street from Sojourners. Welcome to D.C., I thought, remembering that a friend of mine who lived in the Eastern Market-area always saw Janet Reno shopping at her neighborhood grocery store. More recently, my cousin spotted Mike Huckabee standing in line at Five Guys over her lunch hour. If L.A. is the city of celebrity sightings, then D.C. is the city for stalking politicians.

Now, with rumors flying about the details of the Obamas’ impending move to the capital, Obama sightings may become none too rare for locals, forcing all D.C. residents to wonder, if given a fleeting audience with the president, what would I say?

We’ve had the experts and notables in the Sojourners network weigh in with their memos to Obama (which I am excited for you all to read in full in the upcoming issue of Sojourners magazine), but truthfully, I am more curious to see what average Americans wish to tell the man on whom so much is riding these days, because to me it seems that our collective hopes, fears, dreams, and requests need to be heard in this time of change, so we never forget the felt needs of Americans today.

This is why we are asking you, dear readers, to send in your photo memos to Barack Obama. They say a picture is worth a thousand words … what thousand words would you say if you had an audience with the president? See what Sojourners staffers had to say, and then send in your own by emailing your photo memo to interact@sojo.net. We will post the photo memos here as they come. Please allow two business days for posting.

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