Monday, November 9, 2009

A conscientious Senator - Mr. Bob Coffin

Jennifer Joost, the first person I featured for a Q&A interview here, just sent me a quick note. It's good news, folks. She wrote: "I got some attention thanks to you. Just wanted to share this with you." Senator Bob Coffin (Independent Democrat), Clark County, District No. 10 (NV), wrote an email to Jennifer.


Jennifer told me she wrote to all of her State Senators, and he was the only one to respond. I want to praise Senator Coffin for reaching out to her. Here's his response:

"Hi Jennifer. Help me out here. Did the school boot you because of bad credit? I read that and it does not make sense for them to do that. Or, did the student loan payments cease because you had become a credit risk? I am not familiar with the contract you signed to get the loan. Did they breach the terms?"

This news demonstrates the power of writing letters. If the 236,000 supporters of the Forgive Student Loan Debt Movement wrote to their State Representatives, their National Representatives, etc., I am confident we'd receive more responses like this one.

Thanks so much for sharing Jennifer! I appreciate the fact that you have gotten engaged on a civic level for our movement. You are a model, and I look forward to hearing from more supporters about the letters they have received, too.

Important note: If you have received a personal response, and you're willing to share it with me and everyone else (!), please send me those materials to my email (ccrynjohannsen@gmail.com). I would like to post this correspondence on my blog.


2 comments:

Karen said...

This is a start, and shows the importance of continuing to use the "old-fashioned" personal letter. I hope there will be many more stories like this to share.

Cryn Johannsen said...

Indeed, it is a start. I think it's encouraging. He actually wrote her an email. Letters are useful - you're absolutely right.