All summer long last year we were scratching our heads, wondering: Why isn’t Congress doing something about jobs? Surely they know that unemployment is our nation’s most pressing emergency.  Maybe we need to give them a nudge by showing them all of the bridges that need fixing, buildings that need retrofitting, and children that need teaching. And that’s how “Work That Needs Doing” came to be.

President Obama laid out a plan to put people to work rebuilding our roads, renovating our schools, and upgrading our transportation systems. That’s exactly what we need – practical, common-sense ideas that connect people who are looking for work with WORK THAT NEEDS DOING. (We wish we could take credit for it, but our website wasn’t even up yet.)

Included in the plan were tax cuts for small businesses (the real job creators), more money in the pockets of working and middle class Americans, and specific help for the long-term unemployed. The plan is based on bi-partisan ideas, is fully paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes and asking the wealthy to pay their fair share, and will create nearly two million jobs.

In other words, it was what the overwhelming majority of Americans have been calling for.

The President’s jobs plan didn’t pass Congress and all the Work That Needs Doing went undone.

We need to make sure members of Congress hear from all of us. And what better way to send them a message than with a photo of WORK THAT NEEDS DOING? The more photos we share, the bigger the impression we’ll make. If a picture is worth a thousand words, just imagine what a thousand pictures are worth.

If you have an idea about WORK THAT NEEDS DOING in your community, please take a picture and share it with us. And then send a message to Congress and tell them to put America back to work on the WORK THAT NEEDS DOING.