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Skriven 2006-04-10 23:33:42 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0604105) for Mon, 2006 Apr 10
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Mrs. Bush's Remarks to the Press Pool During Visit to New Orleans
Restaurant
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For Immediate Release
Office of the First Lady
April 10, 2006

Mrs. Bush's Remarks to the Press Pool During Visit to New Orleans
Restaurant
Bourbon House Restaurant
New Orleans, Louisiana



1:50 P.M. CDT

MRS. BUSH: Thanks, everybody. Thank you all for coming out. I want to thank
the school superintendents from Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas and
Florida and Alabama that have joined me here for lunch today.

I founded a foundation in 2001 that gives money to school libraries -- the
Laura Bush Foundation for School Libraries -- and last fall, after the
hurricanes, we were having our last meeting to stop, close the fundraising
for the foundation because we raised what we wanted to raise. And then we
decided that we would continue to raise money, to give cash, especially for
the Gulf Coast for the school libraries that were damaged or destroyed
because of the hurricanes. And our goal is to continue to raise money so
that as each school comes on line, ready to restock, as they rebuild that
we'll be able to help them with a grant to buy materials. That's what the
Laura Bush Foundation is for -- it's for books and materials.

But we also want to work with a number of other partners, other foundations
so we can also make sure that schools and school libraries get computers
and other things, all the things that a school library should be stocked
with for the well-being of their kids.

So I want to thank all these school superintendents. I want to congratulate
them on the really, really terrific jobs that they've done under the most
extreme circumstances any school chief operating officers, any state school
superintends had to ever work under, especially in Louisiana and
Mississippi, with the number of schools that were damaged or destroyed and
the number of kids that were displaced out of their own schools.

And then a special thanks to Texas and Alabama and Florida, as well, for
the kids that they are serving now, that moved to those states temporarily
-- or maybe forever, we don't know -- from the Gulf Coast area.

So I want to thank you all for your very, very good work and for your
dedication to the children all up and down the Gulf Coast.

Do you all have any questions?

Q Mrs. Bush, you talked in your speech a little bit about improvements in
New Orleans since you've been here last. What have you seen, and do you
think it's moving quick enough?

MRS. BUSH: Well, I don't know if I can say it's moving quickly; I don't
know that. But I did -- I was very encouraged when we drove in from the
airport. It's a drive in that I've done every single time I've been here.
And this time, for the first time, there was really a lot of activity. You
can see that some houses have been totally repaired and people were back in
them. You could see trailers on some lawns, but with obvious work going on
in the house. Some houses are just sort of -- looked like they were in the
demolition stage, where the windows were gone but were starting to clean
up; and a lot of debris out on the curb, which means somebody just went in
their house and pulled out all the sheet rock or the other damaged things
inside the house.

So I found that very encouraging. I think it was really just -- the amount
of activity really looked like there is just a feeling of hope and a
feeling of good things are going to happen.

Q You met Jeremy this morning. I just want to get your reaction to him, and
what did you think, hearing his personal story?

MRS. BUSH: Well, Jeremy is terrific. He's determined to help other people.
He's determined to help himself. And he's an example of a young man who
left after the hurricane, but really wants to be back here and wants to be
here to help build his city -- rebuild his city.

The interesting thing was, from the man who works for the Marriott
Corporation, Marriott says they have around 300 jobs. There are going to be
a lot of jobs available -- constructions jobs, service industry jobs, a lot
of other jobs all up and down the Gulf Coast. And if we can as a
government, with community based organizations, as well as corporations,
really try to make sure that people get the skills they need to take these
jobs, we can really help people turn their lives around, especially young
people.

The money that the National Urban League got today is specifically for
young people who dropped out of school, who had been adjudicated, who do
need to turn their lives around with a good job. And I was proud to get to
be here today as the Labor Department made that grant to the National Urban
League. I'm proud of the National Urban League and the way they are very
specifically looking at the way they can help people, assessing what they
can do that will be most effective to help young people become employed.

Q What's your understanding of the greatest challenges facing public
schools -- since that's what you were talking about today -- especially
here in New Orleans? And what is the federal government going to do to help
New Orleans rebuild its schools and make them better?

MRS. BUSH: Well, all the school districts that had schools that were
affected by the storms have a lot of problems. Across the Gulf Coast, in
the cities that were virtually destroyed or damaged heavily, like New
Orleans, was, those cities no longer have a tax base; a lot of businesses
have not reopened. And when people realize that your local taxes are what
pay most of your school expenses, and you know that a city, a little town,
for instance, in Mississippi, has totally been destroyed, doesn't have any
tax base right now to rebuild.

That's certainly true in New Orleans, for all the neighborhoods that are
gone, from the number of people that are gone, that aren't even living here
anymore. And so that's a problem.

Another problem that I hadn't really thought of until we met and talked was
how school districts are trying to project how many people will actually
come back, how many kids they'll have, for instance, next September, when
school opens again; how many they might have the next September, and really
trying to do the demographics of how fast they can rebuild and how many
kids will come back as they rebuild.

New Orleans has a chance right now to build a really very good school
district. I know that the state has taken over the New Orleans Parish
schools and I think that they have the opportunity now to really build a
really good school district. In many cases, because schools were destroyed,
all these town across the Gulf Coast will have the chance to build a new,
and maybe better, facility. But, of course, that's capital-intensive; that
costs money. And they're going to need to get money from their states, from
the federal government, from foundations like this one. There are
foundations all across the country that give specifically to education,
that I know would have the Gulf Coast as a priority to try to get those
schools rebuilt.

Thanks, everybody. Thank you all for coming out.

END 1:58 P.M. CDT

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