Body shop gathers tales of economic woe

RALEIGH -- If Tana Malerba's wish comes true, a giant box of real-life hardship will soon land on the next president's doorstep.

She wants to collect letters from friends, family and customers at her Raleigh auto body shop, all of them describing foreclosures, cutbacks, layoffs other varieties of financial woe.

Her goal: deliver at least 1,000 letters to the local headquaters of Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain.

"I would love to be able to hop in the car and bring it right to Washington," said Malerba, who owns Coats Auto Body and Paint on South Saunders Street. "But with the price of gas, it's probably cheaper to mail it."

The itch for activism started with Malerba's 17-year-old daughter, Jamie, who came home from a classroom discussion on the economy asking, "Why doesn't somebody do something?"

So Malerba advised her daughter to write a letter. But one letter didn't seem enough given what Malerba has seen first-hand.

Coats Auto Body recently let two employees go -- a first since Malerba bought it five-and-a-half years ago.

It's been slow in the auto body business, she said, and not because people aren't crashing cars. Many accident victims will take their insurance settlement money and spend it on groceries or rent -- dents or no dents. Customers who still show up regularly report their own economic problems while at the counter.

"One lady lost her house and moved in with her daughter," said Leah Foote, Malerba's sister. "We talk with everybody. We're kind of like the barbershop."

Malerba figures that a single box of letters will be more powerful than 1,000 letters that arrive one by one.

She invites people to send them by e-mail, the postal service or drop them through a mail slot in the business' front door.

The economy may be sputtering, and people may suffer. But at least, Malerba said, she can tell her daughter she didn't sit quietly.