During this time of economic turmoil President Obama revealed that he's written checks from his personal account to help Americans who've written to the White House for help.
The President admitted that although this is something that he probably shouldn't be advertising, he says that it has happened.
The White House declined to comment on the process or what causes he's directly helped out with, but several people who've received personal letters from Obama have put the correspondence up for sale. A single mother in Indiana hoped to save herself from eviction by selling her personal letter from Obama for thousands of dollars.
Obama explained that writing a check or making a phone call aids in alleviating the powerlessness that he feels from reading the letters that flood his office.
"Some of these letters you read and you say, 'Gosh, I really want to help this person, and I may not have the tools to help them right now'. And then you start thinking about the fact that for every one person that wrote describing their story, there might be another hundred thousand going through the same thing. So there are times when I'm reading the letters and I feel pained that I can't do more, faster, to make a difference in their lives."
Source: globalgrind.com
