This is the kick-off for Laura Bush's new pet project - she gets hundreds of millions of dollars for this program. If this was First Lady Hillary, the republicans would have jumped all over her for getting federal funds.

Bushes plan North Side stop Monday
Friday, March 04, 2005
By Steve Levin, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05063/466167.stm

President Bush and Laura Bush will visit the North Side's Providence Family Support Center Monday afternoon as part of the first lady's leadership of a new three-year, $150 million program to steer "at risk" youths away from gangs.

The Bushes are expected to spend several hours in Pittsburgh, including up to 45 minutes at the Brighton Road center, where they will tour preschool classrooms and meet with Teen Program participants and a General Educational Development study group.

Until Wednesday, they also were expected to give remarks in the center's gym, but the space was not large enough to accommodate the expected crowd of about 500, including the news media. That part of the visit has been moved to a different site that will be announced today.

Sister Maria Fest, a member of the Sisters of Divine Providence and executive director of Providence Connections Inc., which operates the center, said her first inkling of a presidential visit came Feb. 11, when she was called by the administration's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

After answering questions about the center's programs and daytime activities, particularly one involving teens, Fest said she was told that the office was thinking about "a high-profile visit." Eleven days later she learned the visitors would be the Bushes.

"It's thrilling, but not knowing the details is a little anxiety-producing," Fest said yesterday, while about a dozen members of the president's advance team added electrical outlets and phone lines at the center and began security preparations. "I've gotten an education the past two days."

The center, which serves 12 North Side neighborhoods, is accustomed to being part of the White House's plans.

H. James Towey, head of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, spoke at the October 2002 dedication of the center's new building, and Fest sat with Laura Bush during the president's 2003 State of the Union speech.

Fest said it is one of 33 family support centers in the county, but the only one with a continuum of care for children from 6 weeks old to 16 years. It includes child care, pre- and after-school care, summer camp and teen, parent and family programs. Eleven years old, it serves a dozen teens and about 100 younger children, plus parents.

"My guess is [the White House] chose us because they work closely with Jim Towey and because he had an experience with our center," Fest said. "That kind of recognition says a lot. This is a good example of a faith-based initiative."

Fest had to keep the pending visit secret from most of her staff until yesterday afternoon on advice from Washington. On Wednesday, staff members told her they thought the men in suits wandering the building were "funders" of the center. Yesterday, staffers still didn't know why electricians were drilling and hauling equipment around the second floor. Fest hopes that after Monday's visit, she can use one of the new second-floor outlets for a fax machine.

Monday's plan calls for the Bushes to enter the center from Wadlow Street and tour the second floor. By then, Fest will have secured releases for all the children who may end up in photos with the first couple; gotten early school dismissal permissions for Teen Program participants so they can meet the Bushes; determined which staff will meet the Bushes; and ensured that center windows facing the buildings across Schimmer Street be covered.

She admits she's harried. But, she said, "it does highlight the work that we're doing here."

Laura Bush wasn't elected, and has no special qualifications to be a CZAR of any program, and making her gang czar is beyond belief. With other education programs scheduled to be gutted in Bush's budget, and Ryan White Funds gutted by a third for people with AIDS, and housing for PWA's cut too, good luck trying to sell Laura's pet project.

Call C-span

202-737-0002 C-span democrats

Jim Towey - Faith based director is now on C-span.

[The Bush caravan tied up traffic for hours....a local news reporter said that this trip WAS NOT POLITICAL--- can you believe that? Bush has been to Pennsylvania over 45 times. Santorum really needs his help. Specter showed up with Bush while Santorum was messing around with the minimum wage bills today.]

Bush and Wife Team Up to Promote Programs

Updated 9:12 PM ET March 7, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88mgjro0&src=ap

By NEDRA PICKLER

PITTSBURGH (AP) - President Bush and wife Laura joined forces Monday to promote the first lady's agenda for helping America's youth _ programs that steer at-risk children away from gangs, drugs and "bad choices."

"She and I share a passion that we've got to make sure that the great strength of our country _ that is the hearts and souls of our citizens _ are directed in such a way that every child can be saved. That's what we want," Bush said at the Community College of Allegheny County.

Bush has launched a $150 million, three-year project to combat gangs and put his wife in charge of it. Mrs. Bush announced a White House conference on the subject and related issues.

Bush and the first lady also visited the Providence Family Support Center on Pittsburgh's north side. The 10-year-old center provides early childhood development services, day care, after-school programs and parenting classes.

The Bushes sat down with students from kindergarten to the fifth grade in an after-school program room. "I'm George," the president said in introducing himself. He and the first lady distributed autographed pictures of their dog Barney and cat India.

At the college, Bush told a gymnasium audience of several hundred people, "We're worried. We're worried about gangs, we're worried about drugs, we're worried about bad choices."

"But we also know that, if we can in our small way, encourage people to put their arm around somebody _ and say `I love you, what can I do to help you?' _ and if we can encourage people to step forward and volunteer their time and talent and compassion, this country can be a better place."

Bush suggested that volunteer efforts and work by religious charities were vital to the effort.

One of the biggest challenges "is how to utilize the assets at our disposal to make sure that every single child, every single person, has a bright and hopeful future," Bush said.

Bush spoke briefly, saying his main job was to introduce the first lady. "It's not the first time people have cheered when I said I'm the introducer and Laura is the speaker," he joked.

Mrs. Bush said youth-help programs "are changing young people's lives for the better."

"Statistics show boys are having a particularly tough time growing up," she said. "Fewer men than women are graduating from college, boys on average are more likely to join gangs, commit crimes and end up in prison."

She praised programs in Detroit and Philadelphia that focus on problems faced by boys.

"Research shows the more children hear ... positive messages from adults, the less likely they are to engage in risky behavior," Mrs. Bush said.

[The Bushes plan a national seminar in Washington in the Fall on at-risk youths. That will take up a big chunk of that $150 million]

"Bush suggested that volunteer efforts and work by religious charities were vital to the effort."

I knew this was a huge faith-based scheme of Bush's!
Those evangelical votes didn't just BUY THEMSELVES!

Bushes push 'right choices' in visit to North Side
Tuesday, March 08, 2005

By James O'Toole, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05067/467909.stm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Bush isn't used to being the opening act, but he cheerfully ceded top billing to first lady Laura Bush yesterday as the pair focused attention on volunteerism and tactics for steering young people to "the right choices" on issues such as drugs, sex and gang membership.

"I've listened to million of his speeches," Laura Bush said after the president introduced her on the North Side campus of Community College of Allegheny County. "Now he gets to listen to one of mine."

In the afternoon visit, their first to the city since Bush's re-election, the first family spotlighted an anti-gang initiative, under Laura Bush's leadership, that the president unveiled in his State of the Union message.

Before the appearance at CCAC, the Bushes surveyed one resource for young persons in a brief tour and photo opportunity at the Providence Family Support Center. There, they folded themselves into child-size chairs in a brightly decorated classroom as they chatted with kindergarten and grade school students who take part in the center's after-school program.

"Hi, I'm George," Bush said to one youngster.

"President George Walker Bush," the boy responded knowingly.

The Bushes sat on opposite sides of one low table chatting quietly with the students, who had been coloring maps of the United States. While the color choices for the different states varied, neither red nor blue seemed to predominate.

One boy presented Bush with a hand-colored banner reading, "Welcome to Pittsburgh President and First Lady."

"I appreciate it; great work," Bush said.

Between the two North Side appearances, the president met privately with Bishop Donald Wuerl, leader of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. [he's still courting the catholic vote]

"Gosh, I think I've been with the bishop maybe, four, five times," Bush said later. "Every time I'm with him, he talks about education."

Deferring to his wife, Bush kept his remarks short, while flattering his host city with the nickname of his own coinage, "Knowledge Town."

The president focused on such uncontroversial topics as volunteerism and the value of education, leaving discussions of more contentious issues such as Social Security and the tax code to another day.

Laura Bush said her new role would seek to emphasize "the importance in every child's life of a loving, caring adult, whether that's a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, a coach, a mentor or a pastor." [and she needs $150 million to do that?]

As part of the program, she said, the White House will host a summit meeting this fall to assess what programs and tactics are doing the best job of helping young people avoid risky behavior.

She said that the gathering will include the unveiling of "a new assessment tool that will allow communities across the country to identify the challenges that they face and the services that they already have that address these challenges and where their gaps are."

Those gaps, she said, might be addressed through government activity or community and faith-based groups, such as the program that she and the president had visited immediately before her remarks. Offering an example of how volunteer work dovetails with that approach, she pointed to one high school student in the audience.

"Albert Conicella is 15 years old and by all accounts, a great football player," she said. "His high school, Central Catholic, puts an emphasis on community involvement, so Albert has been spending time at [Providence] as a tutor and mentor to the younger boys in the after-school program. The boys at Providence have taken to Albert because he's young enough to be cool."

The president's motorcade headed back toward the airport, little more than two hours after Air Force One had touched down. Among the handful of official greeters on the tarmac was state Rep. Mike Diven, R-Brookline, reaping an early dividend for his recent switch from the Democratic Party to the GOP so he could run for state Senate.

Traveling with the president on the flight from Washington, D.C. was U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who assured reporters that he was feeling great following his second chemotherapy treatment for cancer, so good, in fact, that he had played a game of squash over the weekend.

The joint appearance was a sales effort for the president's programs in combating gangs and youth problems. Despite the $150 million, three-year effort spotlighted yesterday as well as in recent appearances by Laura Bush in Detroit and Philadelphia, some congressional critics have argued that other Bush budget proposals would severely cut funding for other programs for troubled youth.....

Volunteer receives president's thanks
Bush's visit fascinates some, aggravates others
Tuesday, March 08, 2005

By Caitlin Cleary, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05067/467911.stm

......Police cordoned off several North Side streets yesterday as Bush and his entourage toured Providence Family Support Center. Residents gathered along the barricades, their video cameras trained on Brighton Road, eager to see the limos pass by or peeved that their daily activities were being curtailed.

"This is just show," said Tina Degonish, 46, who lives nearby. She walked her dog Spot, who wore a sandwich-board sign reading: "Dogs for Peace."

Others talked politics, or swapped ideas on how to trim down the motorcade and Secret Service operations.....

Down the road, a few dozen protesters, mostly students at Community College of Allegheny County, gathered at Brighton Road and Ridge Avenue for Bush's next stop. It was about a block from the CCAC gymnasium, where Bush was speaking, and the closest they could get to the action.

Peter Stolmer, 19, held up a sign: "Why does free speech need a zone?"

Earlier, two protesters were arrested at CCAC: the Rev. Jack O'Malley of Highland Park, a Catholic chaplain to the state AFL-CIO, and Molly Rush of Dormont, a community activist. They are co-founders of the pacificist Thomas Merton Center.

O'Malley and Rush refused to move from an area that had been secured for Bush's visit, said Pittsburgh police Detective Peg Sherwood.

She said that in general the protesters were "pretty good" about staying within designated areas, the so-called "free speech zones."

Toward the end of Bush's visit yesterday, police responded to a report of shots fired at Pennsylvania and Allegheny avenues. Four young black men in a white van, possibly stolen, were seen shooting through the van windows. Police didn't know who or what the men were shooting at, but no one was hurt.