[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 12 (Monday, March 25, 2002)]
[Pages 470-473]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at Samuel W. Tucker Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia

March 20, 2002

    Thank you, Laura, for that warm introduction. I appreciate what a 
fine job she's doing as the First Lady. She's a pretty calm voice in a 
time--in turbulent times for our country, and I'm lucky to be married to 
her.
    I want to thank all the Tucker Tigers for letting me come by to say 
hello. Gosh, it's good to see you all. I want to thank the fact that you 
understand that you can make a big difference in somebody's life, that 
you can

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help a boy and girl who needs help, and you've done a darn good job. I 
understand you raised $2,500. That's a lot of money to raise, but you 
did it by reading books.
    So you accomplished two things: One, you helped somebody in 
Afghanistan who needs your help; and secondly, you practiced reading, 
which is one of the most important things you can do. I hope you read 
more than you watch TV. That's really important. How many of you are 
going to go to college? Can you raise your hands if you're thinking 
about going to college? Boy, that's great. Guess what? That means you've 
set an important goal. That's what that means; you've set a good, 
important goal. It also means you'd better learn how to read. So by 
reading all those books, it's really a good step toward meeting your 
goal.
    So thanks for letting us come. I also want to thank your teachers. 
Thank you all for being teachers. Teaching is a noble profession, an 
incredibly important job. So make sure you listen to your teachers. They 
care about you a lot, and they want you to meet your goal, and they want 
you to learn how to read. And Laura and I want to thank you from the 
bottom of our hearts for taking on this important, vital profession.
    I want to thank the principal as well, and thank the superintendent 
of schools. I want to thank you all. Gosh, it's such a pleasure to come. 
I'm accompanied by some people who I admire a lot. Our Secretary of 
Education, Rod Paige has come with us today. Rod, thank you for being 
here. Our Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, good to see you again, 
Elaine.
    You probably know this already, I don't need to tell you this, but 
each State has got two United States Senators. And you're in the State 
of Virginia, and you've got two Senators that represent your State at 
the Capitol. And you've got two really fine United States Senators, both 
of whom have come today to say hello to us, and both of them have come 
today to show their support for this important project. And here they 
are: Senator John Warner, Senator George Allen. Thank you all for 
coming.
    And from Miami, Florida, there's a Congresswoman here, Ileana Ros-
Lehtinen is here, as well. Ileana, thank you for coming.
    I want to thank Harold Decker and all those who work for the Red 
Cross for participating in this important project. I want to thank all 
of you who helped on the uniform project, as well. You know, I 
oftentimes talk about the need to be a responsible society. In order to 
have a responsible society, there's such a thing as corporate 
responsibility. So it warmed our hearts to know that many of you in 
corporate America heard the call to help, and thank you so much for 
coming. I appreciate your efforts.
    Today as well, we're joined by a special young lady from Texas. 
That's where Laura and I are from. She flew up here for a reason, and 
it's because I wanted to single her out as someone who has done a little 
extra--not a little extra, a lot extra--for the fund to help Afghan boys 
and girls. Her name is Olivia Bennett. Olivia, would you please stand up 
over here? Olivia is from Southlake, Texas, and she's got a unique 
talent. At the age of 12 years old, she is a really good artist. And you 
know what Olivia did? She painted a lot of pictures and sold them and 
thus far has raised $33,000 for the fund to help Afghan children. But 
you know what? She's only a third of the way toward her goal. She told 
me she is going to raise $100,000. And that is so wonderful. Thank you, 
Olivia, very much for being here.
    I want to thank Haroun Amin for being here, as well, the Afghan 
Charge d'Affaires. Thank you so much for coming, sir. And Madam 
President, fine job. There will be a Madam President one of these days, 
and if you keep talking the way you talk, you may be her--[laughter]--
very good job.
    I know you all know that we're fighting a war. We're fighting 
against people who really don't like freedom, people who want to hurt 
us. And I want to assure you that we'll do everything we can to make 
sure they don't. We'll do everything we can. But we're fighting for more 
than just a war; we're fighting to help people, too. We want the world 
not only to be peaceful; we want the world to be a better place. We want 
boys and girls to grow up in a world that is free and where they can go 
to school.
    And we're making some good progress. I want to tell you all that 
we've helped people get food. And a lot of times on TV, all you

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see is about the bombs, but we've prevented mass starvation because 
we've moved a lot of food into the region. We're helping build roads. 
We're helping build schools. We're helping make sure boys and girls or 
others have got health care and health clinics. And we're also doing a 
lot to help children get a good education.
    Laura talked a lot about education, and she's right. If you're 
educated, you've got a much better chance to have a hopeful future and a 
happy future, and that's what we want. We want that for every boy and 
girl, whether they live in America or anywhere else in the world.
    And the amazing thing about this--and a lot of Americans have 
trouble understanding this--that for the first time young girls are 
going to be going to school in Afghanistan. See, that's hard for us to 
believe, isn't it? Most of you, after summer, dread going back to 
school--not all of you, some of you. But there are boys and girls--
there's girls in Afghanistan who dream about getting to go at all. And 
as a result of what our country and many of our friends have done, girls 
get to go to school, too, starting this week.
    And when they go to school, we want to make sure they've got 
supplies. We want to make sure they've got tablets to write on and 
crayolas to color with and even jump ropes to jump with. And so one of 
the things that's happened is we've put a coalition--that means a group 
of people--together to send textbooks to Afghanistan. We've sent 4 
million textbooks thus far, and there's another 6 million to go in 
Afghanistan, so the boys and girls will have something to read.
    And as you heard earlier, we're putting basic school supply kits 
together, so that 120,000 Afghan children will have some school supplies 
by June. And they're called school chests, and today I had a chance to 
see some of your classmates putting the chests together. Matter of fact, 
I got to load a couple of notebooks myself. Forty notebooks per chest, 
that's a lot of notebooks. But that's how many children there are in a 
class.
    And there's a lot of other things in there as well. There's pencils 
and rulers, as I mentioned, crayons, jump ropes, a soccer ball so the 
kids can play soccer, get a little exercise while you're doing your 
studies. And so far, I just want you all to know--it's kind of a report 
here--that 1,000 of these kits have been put together, 1,000 chests have 
been assembled.
    But that's not enough. We need 2,000 more chests. And so I'm asking 
our fellow Americans to rally for this good cause, to donate and 
participate in the creation of 2,000 more school supply chests to go to 
Afghanistan. And if you want to help, contact your local Red Cross 
chapter.
    You know, I'm asked all the time, ``What can I do to help in the war 
against terror?'' You can help by helping build one of these school 
chests. It doesn't matter how you do it, how you raise the money. Just 
get it done.
    And the good news is we're a can-do country. We're a country who 
responds in a compassionate way. There's no doubt in my mind, Harold, 
that the American people will respond. And when they do, Laura and I 
will thank them from the bottom of my heart--our hearts.
    But there's a lot to do. And so for those of you out in America who 
wonder what you can do to help, call the Red Cross office. And they will 
give you an assignment, and when you fulfill the assignment, you'll know 
you're making a huge difference, a significant difference in the life of 
a boy or a girl in Afghanistan.
    Our dream is a world that's peaceful, and our dream is a world that 
is hopeful. And the best way to make sure the world is hopeful is to 
help people get a good education, and that's what we're here today to 
honor.
    I want to thank you all for helping somebody. I want to thank you 
all for understanding that when you help somebody, it really helps your 
own life, that when you help somebody in need, that it makes you a 
better person. I hope that's a lesson you keep with you for a long time.
    Thanks for letting us come by to say hello. God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 1:54 p.m. in the school gym. In his 
remarks, he referred to Cathy David, principal, and Kamila Benzina, 
student council president, Samuel W. Tucker Elementary School; Rebecca 
L. Perry, superintendent of

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schools, Alexandria City Public Schools; and Harold Decker, chief 
executive officer, American Red Cross.