Gerald J. Alred Professional Writing Challenge Award - Spring Semester

For the Spring 2025 semester, the Professional Writing Challenge will be held from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Friday, May 9 in the Lubar N234A computer lab. If you are enrolled in an online version of English 205, 206, or 207, you are welcome to join the students who are enrolled in one of the classroom versions of these courses in the computer lab if you would like.

You will learn whether you won one of the awards in late June or early July. A first-place, second-place, and third-place winner will be selected. The first-place winner will receive a $500 prize deposited into their PAWS account in Fall 2025. Students must be enrolled at UWM during the Fall semester to receive the monetary award. All participants will receive a printed Certificate of Participation. An annual awards ceremony will be held in late February 2026 for all participants of the Spring 2025 and Fall 2025 Professional Writing Challenge competitions.
Make sure to include the fact that you participated in this contest on your résumé. Thank you for agreeing to participate.

Gerald J. Alred Professional Writing Challenge
Spring 2025: Case

Background
You are Taylor Thompson, a full-time university student and part-time Digital Communications Assistant for the Medical Communications Department at MEDI-MOBILE, a non-profit organization that was established five years ago. MEDI-MOBILE provides routine preventative and diagnostic medical care for residents in rural areas in Wisconsin and the upper Midwest in a large van equipped with a variety of medical devices used by traveling healthcare professionals. You grew up in a small, rural town that required driving two hours to the nearest medical facility, and you know how important this service is for underserved populations. You want to help communities in need when you have time on weekends, breaks during the academic year, and during the summer.

According to the article, Medicare Pay Cuts: What They Mean for Rural America, by Tanya Albert Henry, which was published on March 13, 2025 in the American Medical Association’s website, “Medicare cuts threaten to exacerbate the already existing health inequities for economically and socially marginalized patients in the nation’s rural areas. Notably, this patient population already has a higher risk of dying from heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease and stroke compared with urban and suburban patients” (https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/medicare-medicaid/medicare-pay-cuts-what-they-mean-rural-america).

Recently, you learned that MEDI-MOBILE may soon lose federal funding for their critical mission. The organization is currently evaluating how it can restore operational funds with other sources of revenue if it loses its primary source of funding. In the meantime, to reduce costs, the MEDI-MOBILE team will decrease the number of areas scheduled to visit next month. An announcement was mailed to residents in the areas that are served explaining where MEDI-MOBILE may pause upcoming services.

You received a letter from Wally Wickstrom, who has relied on MEDI-MOBILE for the past two years and whose small community would be affected by the change. Mr. Wickstrom, a disabled veteran who lives with an elderly mother, expressed fear about the consequences of not being served, as they have health issues and are not physically able to travel to the nearest town where MEDI-MOBILE will be. He has requested MEDI-MOBILE to reconsider the change and to continue to serve their area.

Your Task
Write a correctly formatted one-page letter (in the full-block letter style with letterhead) to Mr. Wickstrom. Use the Indirect Pattern of Organization to show sensitivity. Create a mailing address, telephone number, and website address for MEDI-MOBILE. Use the following mailing address for Mr. Wickstrom:

15500W South Swan Song Road
Port Wing, WI 54865

*Please place your anonymous number on the top right corner of your entry. Please do not include your real name anywhere on your entry. *

Good Luck!