Dear Southern Group of State Foresters,

I think this is a great idea. I think it’s important to show how federal funding and your group of members helps the urban community, especially those disadvantaged communities, connect more with nature and have better lives through trees.

I think I’m uniquely suited to this job. Besides working in small Southern newspapers for a decade, I also have years of experience working in agriculture. I’ve run my own, very small, farm for the last four years — delivering fresh fruit and veggies to Athens customers, along with a weekly newsletter for the last three years. Before that, I worked as a produce manager for a Certified Organic family farm and as a grower of a 1-acre greenhouse for commercially produced ornamentals.

I also know many of the member areas through personal experience. Born in Charleston, I grew up on the Albermarle Sound in North Carolina. My family and friends frequently took trips to Virginia Beach, the closest movie theater at the time playing more than two movies. I lived in Little Rock, Arkansas and worked in Pine Bluff as a reporter for The Pine Bluff Commercial. I’ve stayed with an artist friend in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, took spring breaks in Dauphin Island, Alabama and visited the Cajun side of my family in Baton Rouge and Thibodaux, Louisiana. I’ve attended toured farms in Chattanooga, Tennessee, spent a month in Austin, had job interviews in Houston and driven across Texas on Interstate 40 twice.

More than my familiarity with the South, I’m also familiar with the communities you want to reach. I’ve worked with immigrants at organic family farms and immigrants at larger, commerical operations. I know people like Jorge, working his 9-to-5 greenhouse job, on top of picking up work at a local liquor store to provide for his wife and three children, send money home to El Salvador and saving up money for what he wants the most: A house with a yard.