CHALMETTE, La. (AP) — For the fifth time since Hurricane Katrina, former First Lady Laura Bush visited Chalmette High School on Thursday and announced grants ranging from $20,000 to $60,000 to help school libraries in Louisiana and Mississippi rebuild their collections after Hurricane Katrina.
The Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries announced its first round of Gulf library recovery grants at Chalmette High on March 3, 2006.
“I am happy to be back in the state of Louisiana,” Bush told the crowd, mainly consisting of Chalmette High students and teachers and librarians from some of the 116 Gulf school libraries that have received $6.3 million from the foundation. “And of course, that means several delicious meals.”
She praised the “recovery and renewal we see in the Gulf Coast today” and applauded local officials for the “unprecedented task of rebuilding whole school districts.”
She said libraries “provide a sense of normalcy” to a child’s life and, quoting one Gulf library official, said they also bring a kind of “bibliotherapy.”
The Times-Picayune reports (http://bit.ly/wdf3nc ) that along with the 10 grants to Louisiana, and two to Pass Christian, Miss., school libraries, Bush also announced — to the surprise of the librarians in attendance from many of the schools — that all 116 school libraries that have received grants from the foundation over the past six years will also receive about $1,000 each.
St. Bernard Parish Schools Superintendent Doris Voitier led the grant award ceremony, which ushered Bush to the stage with “The Eyes of Texas,” the alma mater of the University of Texas at Austin, where Bush attained her master’s degree in Library Science before beginning her carrier as a librarian.
“Thank you for bringing life, literally, back into our library,” Voitier told Bush.
In March 2006, Bush brought with her the CEO of Time Inc. to replace and enhance St. Bernard’s prized Life magazine collection dating to its first 1936 issue. The new library now features that collection prominently.
After the ceremony, a member of the foundation’s advisory council led a session for librarians on “best practices for digital materials,” explaining in part how to use e-books as library references.
Of the Louisiana grants, $60,000 each went to Edward Hynes Charter School in New Orleans and Fisher Middle-High School in Jean Lafitte; $50,000 each was awarded to Arabi Elementary School, Chalmette Elementary School, Kate Middleton Elementary School in Gretna, Lincoln Elementary School for the Arts in Marrero and Morris Jeff Community School in New Orleans; $25,000 was granted to Leo E. Kerner Jr. Elementary School in Jean Lafitte; and $20,000 goes to LeBlanc Elementary School in Abbeville and William Hart Elementary School in Gretna.
In Mississippi, Pass Christian Elementary and Pass Christian Middle School each will receive $50,000 from the foundation.