Thank you, Rosie! What a joy it is for me to brag about my first Grandchild, my Goddaughter, and someone I love very much! Everyone would like to have a Granddaughter like Rosie!!! Let me also thank Marjo Talbott, The Head of “Maret School,” for your vision and leadership in choosing to commit the resources of “Maret School” to the important work of “Horizons”. And I congratulate you, Erasmo Garza, and the H.D. Cooke School for making this partnership successful.
Tonight, my comments will be brief and self-centered, brief because you have many important speakers who can inspire you with the crucial issues you have come here to learn more about and to support. But I am enormously lucky to be here, to have been a part of efforts similar to yours in my lifetime, to be able to imagine the future you will build as you grow The Horizons program.
And, I am surely one of the luckiest men alive to be the Grandfather of Sophia Rose Potter Shriver! Rosie, Rosie, please take a bow! Do you all know that she is not only beautiful, but also works with a group each summer to renovate homes in poor neighborhoods. She works with a camp in Anacostia for the poorest children and every winter returns to her elementary school to volunteer as the manager of the school-wide play. If that isn’t enough, at Maret, Rosie has tutored elementary school students at Casa Del Pueblo and helped make the video for Horizons which you will see tonight. Rosie: You’re terrific!
Now let me repeat what Linda said earlier. Everyone here is welcome in this house. While Eunice and I are proud of this wonderful place, we are happiest when people of commitment and vision use this house for good purposes. That is what you are doing here tonight!
You are coming together to work for the future to create opportunity, to create educational hope, to create justice for all children. So, Eunice and I are honored that you are here in our home.
Second, let me tell you that I think your work is of enormous importance. This Century we are now in, the 2l Century, must be different from the last one. I know because I lived the in the last one almost the whole thing!
And it was often a Century of disaster of wars, of hatreds, of conflicts among nations. This new Century can be and must be different. It can be a “Century of Peace.” But if it is to be different, we must offer hope to those who often don’t even get a chance, those who are treated badly by society, those who don’t see the possibilities of the future, those who come to feel that they don’t count. We will never have peace unless every child experiences a meaningful life.
Truthfully, every school in our nation’s capital should be creating PARTNERSHIPS like the one you are building tonight. Every child should have a chance to cross the boundaries created by income, by geography, and ethnicity. But we all know that many children in this great city never get a chance at a decent education in a nurturing environment. So we must, we must, yes, we must educate everyone so that they will seek justice for all.
And we must educate everyone for peace. That is why you are here tonight.
So, I congratulate you. Finally, I thank you for including me. I don’t know how to explain to you my feeling of gratitude. I feel this way almost every day, just by waking up!
That’s because I have been blessed with a wonderful childhood, the best wife in the world, five superb children, fifteen bright and enthusiastic grandchildren, and along the way, the chance to meet remarkable human beings and actually be a part of important Movements like The Peace Corps and Head Start, and Upward Bound, and many, many more. I don’t know why I have had so many blessings, but I thank God and our country, and all the friends who have helped me in every way and at all times.
Tonight, I count being here with all of you as another blessing. I hope at least some of you may feel the same way. So once again, thank you for coming and thank you for doing what you are doing to change the world for the better.
