Thousands of Americans confronted the jobs crisis in house meetings held in all 50 states over the weekend. There were over 1,550 total, which resoluted in concrete solutions to create jobs.

MoveOn.org and Change Nation joined forces to facilitate the house meetings. Gabe Gonzales, our national campaign director, had this to say about the meetings:

It’s painfully obvious to all Americans that Washington is broken, and our elected officials are squandering every opportunity to create jobs and get our economy moving again. I’m so proud that thousands of Americans came together to create real solutions to end this jobs crisis. Politicians and the big corporate interests they serve ought to take notice: the American people aren’t going to stand for business as usual.

We also heard from Portia Boulger, who held a house meeting in Chillicothe, OH:

I was heartened by the thoughtful ideas that came out of my meeting, and I look forward to being part of this new movement to rebuild our economy. One idea from my meeting was to restore an abandoned shoe factory in our area and turn it into a place where Americans can once again make shoes, or make some other products. This factory has sat abandoned for decades! Let’s put it back into business.

At a house meeting in Seattle, attendees were slated to meet again today at the Federal Building to let the their state Congress know some of the ideas that came from their gathering. Then, at a meeting held in Memphis, Tennessee, one idea was to use funds earmarked for blight remediation to create jobs for unemployed and homeless people.

Meeting participants all expressed complete support for a nationwide day of action on Aug. 10 to continue the push of citizens creating jobs. Because, as Gabe puts it, “We can’t sit by and do nothing. Creating jobs in this country has to be the number one priority. And together, we will succeed.”