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  • Serenity Zwaschka, 10, looks at the letter and photo she got from the White House. About a month ago, she wrote the president with her worries about pollution and global warming. John Cross

    Obama Letter

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February 11, 2012

Girl gets reply to letter to White House

By Dan Linehan Free Press Staff Writer

When Serenity Zwaschka was 7, she found a dead bird on a sidewalk in front of a gas station. It was not a dignified final resting place, and the bird was brought home for an impromptu funeral and burial out back.

When her mom warms up the car, Serenity, now 10, objects as the wasteful hydrocarbons pour out the tailpipe. When litter appeared in college housing near their Mankato home, Serenity got a trash bag and picked it up.

“I’m just one small person,” she says. “That doesn’t mean I can’t do stuff.”

She’s not, in other words, one to sit back and accept the present state of affairs. So named for her nearly silent birth, Serenity is nonetheless troubled by what she believes isn’t right, especially when it concerns animals and the environment.

When, a few weeks back, Serenity saw smoke coming from a nearby building, she asked her mother, Tina Chantler Zwaschka, how to begin a letter.

“Dear Mr. Obama,” she wrote.

“I first would like to begin this letter by saying who I am. I am Serenity Louise Zwaschka and I’m ten years old.”

She spends the next 100 or so words warning the president about the effects of global warming, like polar bear extinction, and about resource depletion.

Serenity signs the letter as “Environment girl (Serenity Zwaschka)” and adds a slightly ominous postscript.

“P.S. If you don’t know what to do with this letter I’ll find somebody who invests his or her time seeking for a cure of globel warming,” she wrote.

(Serenity’s reason for the spelling errors: “I didn’t proof-read it.”)

Serenity downplays the passage, saying it would merely give the president an out if this issue just isn’t his province.

“You don’t have to be good at everything,” she says by way of explanation.

The letter was mailed in early January, and she got a reply in the mail on Jan. 28.

The reply includes a letter affirming the president’s commitment to the environment and tells Serenity what children like her can do to help the environment. Recycling tips aren’t exactly news to her, though.

“I’m smart enough to know that,” she says.

The letter carries the president’s signature, though Serenity’s letter seems unlikely to have been read by him.

According to a Reuters review of the book “Ten Letters,” the president’s staffers and volunteers receive about 20,000 pieces of correspondence daily. The staff then picks 10 representative letters to deliver to the president, who, on average, responds to one or two of the letters nightly.

Serenity is realistic on the prospect that her letter was read by the big boss.

“We don’t know for sure, but it’s a letter from the White House for sure,” she says.

Serenity, who would like to be a veterinarian someday, may be most entranced by an accompanying picture of and fact sheet about the First Pet, Bo, a Portuguese water dog.

“He doesn’t know how to swim,” Serenity says.

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