Dear Amazing Race....

We have been watching very little television while here in Fiji. Our only regular guilty pleasure this fall has been to download and watch this season's Amazing Race. The reality series involves teams of two racing around the world and competing with other teams to accomplish a series of tasks.

Ian recently came up with an idea for new Amazing Race challenges in upcoming seasons. Ben and I were thrilled to see Ian encorporating into his own mindset some of the things we've been doing here, like serving the local community. We also thought it a great subject for a persuasive writing exercise. Much to our surprise, Ian agreed to take on the job. He drafted and sent the following letter to Amazing Race producer Jerry Brukheimer about a week ago.

We are all hoping that the letter, handwritten and addressed will provide the Amazing Race staff with some new ideas. Even more, we hope that these folks will see the effort that Ian put into this project and send him a thoughtful response. I think it will go a long ways toward getting Ian to see the point of at least one of the writing exercises that his mean old parents keep assigning to him as part of homeschool. - Brooke

Here is the text of Ian's letter.......

Dear Mr. Brukheimer:

My name is Ian Drury and I am 9 years old. I am writing to you because I had an idea for a new feature for The Amazing Race, one that could make the world a better place.

Normally, my Dad, Mom, sister Tica and I live on Bainbridge Island, Washington. This school year, we are traveling to exotic places like SE Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Right now we are living in Savusavu, Fiji. We are doing homeschool and learning a lot about the people and places we are visiting. We are also trying to do our part in helping the community. In Savusavu, we have cleaned up litter, decorated the local hospital for Christmas and helped the local Rotary Club to raise money for community projects in our town.

We watch The Amazing Race every Wednesday and we love it. Fiji TV is showing last year’s Race so we downloaded this season’s Race off of iTunes. It is the only tv we watch.

Walking home from a friend’s the other night, I got the idea that The Amazing Race can do its part to help the communities that the teams visit. I think that on every leg of The Race there should be one challenge that involves the team actually doing something for the community, like cleaning up trash or building a library or library book shelves or working on a water project. The Amazing Race would be helping out the local community in some way and drawing viewers’ attention to that community’s needs. It would be good for The Race too because people could ask The Race to come and participate in community projects, giving you new ideas and destinations for tasks.

I think it would be amazing to see the difference that The Race can make. From my view, it looks like a lot of people in the world need help. And when we work together we can make a difference.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Ian Drury