What are You Waiting For?: 4 Reasons to Vote for Barack Obama.

[FlaDem83]

1. Aimee (mom)
2. Emily (daughter)
3. Kelsey (daughter) and
4. Kaely (daughter)

I volunteer with a local group in Manatee County, Florida called Family Promise. As part of the program, homeless families rotate through 12-14 churches, a week at a time, and the churches provide food, shelter and transportation for these families. I met this family at my church last night.

When Emily, a teenager, fell ill with pneumonia about a year ago, and after they delayed in going to the doctor, they finally took her to the emergency room. While undergoing tests to diagnose the severity of the pneumonia, Emily contracted a MRSA infection that settled in her lungs and required intensive care in the Children's hospital for about 15 days and subsequent length hospitalization and expensive drugs. Aimee - the mom, lost her job because her employer couldn't deal with her being gone to care for Emily. She lost the house. The car broke down. The medical and prescription bills kept mounting....and they wound up with no place to live.

Kelsy has severe autism and requires intensive care and therapy that Aimee, the mother, just can't afford all the time.

Aimee is still unemployed, but works as a babysitter and helper around the house and is going to school now that she has the stability of the Family Promise program. She can't afford an apartment yet. She wants to be a social worker but doesn't know if she'll be able to get student loans next year. She just spent 100 dollars on back to school clothes for the kids, and none for herself, and confided in me that she couldn't believe she spent that much but wanted the girls to have a couple new outfits.

She talked to me at length last night about the hope she has in Obama's campaign, and about how she can't go on much longer, and about how she can't wait til january 2009.

She can't wait for universal healthcare. She can't wait for an increase in the minimum wage. She can't wait for employers that let her have a couple days off without penalty to take care of a sick child. She can't wait, and neither can we - so, for all the lipstick fury, and daily polls, and ups and downs of this campaign and the increasingly contemptible insults hurled by the McPain campaign, please think of Aimee, Emily, Kelsey and Kaely. This is why we work to help get Obama elected - - - -

They can't wait.

So don't you wait...don't wait to make calls, to canvass, to donate!!! Keep your eyes on the prize, and we'll get there before we know it!

[scheming daemons]

1. If you're going to vote for him, you might want to spell "Barack" correctly...

[FlaDem83]

3. Thanks so much for the spelling lesson, you'll notice that it was corrected shortly after the post!!

[babylonsister]

2. Umm, that would be spelled 'Barack'.

Just a little annoyance with me; we should all be able to spell his name.