March 2006

Bring Back the Magic of Books to Gulf Coast Children

Reg Weaver
President, NEA

It was the biggest natural disaster in American history. Katrina and her sisters showed no mercy. So much was just swept away. Cities and towns, homes and businesses, lives and livelihoods.

Katrina even seemed bent on destroying ideas and knowledge, knocking down hundreds of public schools and libraries, drowning millions of pages of science, history, art, and literature in soggy rubble and thick mud.

I went to see what was left of the Gulf Coast's public schools. As a teacher, it broke my heart. As president of the National Education Association, I saw the long, hard road ahead.

The past and the present as written may have been destroyed in these storms, but not the future. Last year, NEA contributed one million dollars to help Gulf Coast public school students and teachers begin rebuilding their lives.

And this year, 2.8 million NEA members will not forget our continuing commitment to people who live along the Gulf Coast. That's why NEA has launched Books Across America, a national campaign to restock public school library shelves and classrooms with the millions of books they need desperately to start teaching and learning again, to start hoping again.

Along with NEA's partners, First Book, The Heart of America Foundation and The NEA Foundation, millions of Americans across the country are participating in Books Across America. Join us. Volunteer some time.

Organize a book drive. Buy a book for a Gulf Coast child. Make a contribution. Help raise funds for more books. Just go to our Web site at www.nea.org/booksacross to learn what you can do.

Join Books Across America. New books will get Gulf Coast kids reading again, and help make great public schools for every child.

It's their basic right. And our responsibility.