Work That Needs Doing on Huffington Post

At Hill jobs rally, Unemployed D.C worker who watched a teen die pleads with Congress: “Fight for us!”

Unemployed home health care provider and community arts leader Linda Evans of Washington, D.C., gave a powerful plea to “save our babies” at the Jobs Not Cuts Rally on Capitol Hill.  Speaking beneath a Work That Needs Doing campaign poster entitled, “DC At-Risk Youth,” Evans called for Congress to create good jobs for the District’s youth, who faced the highest teen unemployment rate in the nation.

Her speech was quoted by CNN, the Huffington Post , and other local news and blog outlets.  The text of her speech follows here, and the full speech has been posted online by the Justice through Music Project:

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“My name is Linda Evans and I am a home health care provider by trade and I am tired of being sick and tired of being unemployed.  For three years I’ve been looking for a job and all I get is, “We’ll call you.”  I’ve heard that so much that I’m beginning to believe that’s my middle name.

I come from a proud family.  I’m a proud woman.  My grandfather used to own his own barber shop right down this street on Capitol Hill.  My mother was a nurse and worked at the Home for the Incurables.  My family owned their own homes.  They instilled in me good work ethics and a love for the arts.

And so for the last three years I decided to create a youth program in my community, arts and theater for at-risk.  Because I saw a youth take his last breath, I saw him die in front of me, I want to make a difference.

So I’m asking members of Congress:

Give us a chance, fight for us, we’re the ones that put you in office. Fight for us.

How can you sleep at night knowing that youth are selling drugs just to make money?  How can you sleep at night knowing that people in the District of Columbia are going hungry and living at a poverty level?

Make wholesome decisions, Congress.  And a wholesome decision is creating programs for our elderly.
A wholesome decision is creating good jobs for people that put you in office.

Save our babies, save our babies!  Bring good jobs back, bring jobs!”