|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ZURICH CLASSIC OF NEW ORLEANSApril 19, 2007Gary CoralesTommy FonsecaJames SchiroAVONDALE, LOUISIANA TOMMY FONSECA: Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. My name is Tommy Fonseca, tournament director of the Zurich Classic. Today was an exciting start for a great tournament with a great title sponsor, Zurich. With me here today is Jim Schiro, CEO of Zurich. I'd like to turn the mike over to Jim and let him talk with you about a program, Birdies For Books, that Zurich has teamed up with Fore! Kids this year. JAMES SCHIRO: Thanks, Tommy. Let me first say a couple words. This tournament is off to an exciting start, and it isn't just the weather. You can look at the scores, and there's a sense of excitement that started yesterday you could feel through the Pro-Am, and today we had First Lady Laura Bush here to kick off the Birdies For Books campaign that we did together with the Fore! Kids Foundation. This is an idea that came up, as you know the Laura Bush Foundation has been supporting schools and literacy programs in the Gulf Coast. Not only were homes devastated, personal belongings and people losing personal pictures and the like, but one of the things that we fail to realize sometimes is the importance of libraries in education. Libraries are extremely important. And that is really one of the fundamental things that allow people to transcend economic and social boundaries, and they're fundamental to our educational system in spite of the internet. People like to sit down and read books, and those are important. Today we were at Holy Cross School in New Orleans, where the library was almost completely devastated. I think they only have about 500 books that they were able to recover. When we were approached by -- I was approached by the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland that she was coming back to the foundation, and we came up with this idea and presented it to Fore! Kids that we would launch this program, that we would donate $100 for each birdie that was made. We assume, given our actuarial science, that we'll have about 1,500 birdies. Basically that will give us $150,000, and we're hoping to raise another $100,000 from others in the community to go to replenishment and revitalization of libraries in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast States. That was the fundamental idea. If you played with me in the Pro-Am yesterday, it's a good thing we didn't say Bogeys For Books because we probably would have exceeded the goal (laughter). But this is a great thing, and it's a great tournament, and I'm just delighted that Zurich can be part of this. TOMMY FONSECA: Thank you, Jim. At this time I'd like to introduce to you Gary Corales, who is vice president with Nu-Lite Electrical Wholesalers. Gary approached our organization Fore! Kids, and has generously -- is making a donation to the Fore! Kids Foundation in the amount of $90,000. With those proceeds, we sat together, and the best use of them are twofold. We are pleased to provide a skybox on the 17th green for all first responders and military. Over the last month, we've gone out and met with those groups and provided them with free tickets so they could come to our tournament and enjoy PGA TOUR golf, and it's something that we were glad to give back to those individuals who did the heavy lifting post-Katrina. In talking with Gary, the remaining money, the $76,000, will go directly to this new program Birdies For Books to support library recovery in the south. At this time I'd like to introduce Gary Corales with Nu-Lite. GARY CORALES: Thank you. The storm came, and it hurt a lot of people in the city, and we were fortunate enough to reap some benefit as far as business, and it gave us an opportunity to give something back to the city that we've been doing business in since 1950. So it's with great pleasure that we're able to help out such a great organization, and we appreciate y'all putting it on. Thank you. JAMES SCHIRO: Thank you very much, Gary. That's the kind of outreach that we were hoping to generate from this program, and as you can see here, Gary presenting this check to Tommy for $90,000. This is just the first day of the tournament, and I'm hoping others will step up in the same way that Gary and has company has to really help us far exceed that goal because you're really helping a lot of young people transition their lives. Thank you very much, and I know that I speak for myself, and I'm sure Gary feels the same way, people like us who can help others, that's a great gift that you're given, and you should take advantage of that gift. Thank you. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|