On this Thanksgiving Day we are grateful for family and friends and our work that sustains us—as well as for life’s simple pleasures (like crawfish and pecan pies) and the opportunities we’re given to make the world a better place.

We are also especially thankful that the American people voted in large numbers and so enthusiastically for an excellent new president (-elect) who is already restoring hope and confidence in our people—and around the world. May God guide him with wisdom and keep him safe and in good health always. (We pray the same for all our public officials.)

We’re grateful, too, for improved conditions for restoring the conditions of life in New Orleans, Louisiana, and along the storm-battered Gulf Coast. We and other hope-fueled volunteers, still high from the successful campaign, are eager to work with environmental groups and allies in government and kindred spirits in industry (including seafood) to restore coastal Louisiana. But it won’t be easy.

With new friends coming to Washington and with economists across the spectrum calling for large-scale stimulus spending (balance the budget later), the conditions are right for smart, focused spending on public works and infrastructure projects. Levees Not War will be pushing hard to advocate a jobs program like FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps to restore the Louisiana wetlands. We must make use of favorable conditions while the time is right: political and economic opportunities like this are rare, and there’s no time to waste.

We will not expect the new president to do everything for us, but we’ll follow the example of the Community Organizer in Chief to unite with those who agree, to seek new allies, and bridge differences to forge the political will to rebuild barrier islands and restore wetlands for the common, national good. It will take a World War II–like mobilization and will to win. Yes we can.

“In this holiday season,” said Barack Obama said in the 2007 Obama family Christmas video, “we’re reminded that the things that unite us as a people are more enduring than anything that sets us apart.”

And we are truly thankful for that.