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The First Lady and LSU have been able to establish an endowment that will provide approximately $200,000 a year every year forever into the future to support LSU students who have experienced foster care. That word forever matters. This endowment will create opportunities for generations of LSU students. And because of this new scholarship, that will not only help with tuition, fees, and books, but also with room and board. Because of that, we will be able to proactively address some of the real barriers that face former foster children who do not have the traditional financial support system behind them when they get accepted to college. Pepper, Pepper, this entire MMR group family, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for believing so deeply in LSU and in the potential of these young people. Today perfectly represents what LSU is called to do. Open doors to opportunity and prepare people to build lives of purpose and impact through the power of our brand. Three letters, two colors, one state, we are all LSU. And now it is my great honor as president of the LSU system to introduce the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump, and to celebrate what her Fostering the Future initiative is making possible for young people all across this country and right here, right now at LSU. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the First Lady of the United States of America, Melania Trump. How incredible is this? I need to pinch myself. How incredible is this? As the First Lady joins us, I'd like to take a moment to share our gratitude for her partnership with LSU and for her care for our students. Mrs. Trump, one of the great privileges of being part of the LSU family is that our spirit is unmatched. Our spirit is unmatched. I hope you feel it today and I hope you feel it in the stadium a little later. On behalf of LSU, it is my pleasure to present to you with an LSU football helmet bearing the Be Best Fostering the Future logo, just as every football player will wear in the game today. We'd also like to present to you with your very own LSU jersey with the Be Best patch that will be worn by every one of our players today to commemorate not just your visit to Baton Rouge, but also your lasting impact on the lives of our students. Finally, we have a special guest here to present to you with a gift that was made for the celebration of this milestone. The company Big Game USA, owned by our very own LSU alumnus, Chris Calandro, makes the footballs used as many, many NCAA programs around the country, including ours right here at LSU. Chris was kind enough to design and donate a custom Be Best Fostering the Future football, and here to present it to you is our very own Coach O. Mrs. Trump, I hope you can feel our excitement. We are beyond excited that you are here today. We want to thank you so much for the opportunities you are creating for future leaders across the country, and for trusting LSU to carry your vision forward. We are super, super, super excited, and I think everyone here can't wait to hear your comments. Thank you for being here. Thank you, President. Good afternoon, Tigers. President Ruth, Governor Landry, Mr. Rotland, and all of the distinguished guests who are welcoming me to Louisiana today. Thank you for your support. It's $11,200,000. At some point in a young person's life, the world can feel like it's moving too fast. When things are uncertain, it's hard to know which way to go, and the future can seem out of reach. As children navigating foster care, that feeling of drifting can feel even stronger. Today, Louisiana State University is launching 7,200,000 Fostering the Future Scholarship Endowment. This achievement will give young people from foster care and an anchor of stability, a strong educational foundation, and a chance to build a wonderful life. Thank you, LSU, for giving the foster care community this advantage. After meeting LSU's leadership and this remarkable community, I'm not surprised by your achievement. You have united by giving young people with few resources, the tools, to chart their own future. MMR and the generous donors who made this 7,200,000 milestone possible know that investing in young people will create opportunities for Baton Rouge for many generations. This is very good for America. LSU defines excellence. Your high standard starts in the classroom, amplifies on the football field, and shapes America's future leaders. Thank you for welcoming me to Baton Rouge for one of this year's greatest college football games, LSU versus Alabama. Both universities are part of fostering the future. While most eyes will be on the athletes today, I encourage you to recognize LSU's Fostering the Future Scholars, who are just as remarkable. Today, we have 14 scholars at LSU and 9 at Alabama. Across the country, 26 universities are supporting 100 Fostering the Future Scholars this semester. When I started Fostering the Future in 2021, my vision was clear. Every young person from foster care should have the chance to build an extraordinary life. Education is the center of that plan. A greater education does more than prepare someone for work life. It gives something no one can ever take away. There is nothing more powerful. We can give a young person than a world-class education. As adults, we have a moral obligation to our children, especially those in foster care. But, as you know, we must act to truly make a difference. The foster care community doesn't need words. To the Fostering the Future Scholars here today and throughout America, I see you, I believe in you, and I will keep working to create new opportunities with you. Explore the programs, scholarships, and resources we have created, and make the most of them. You can control your own destiny now. Now, let's go and enjoy the game. It is an important one. It is my distinct honor to welcome a true LSU icon, the founder and CEO, Mr. James B. Pepper Rutland. Thank you so much. Well, I hope they left me something up here to read. I think we're a little bit out of order, but other side, right to left, left to right. Well, I've got a workshop here. Oh, that's it. That might be it, right there. Okay. We're going to get this. We're going to get all our records out to you. Okay, there you go. Well, thank you again. Great honor to be here. Great presentation. I want to thank, first of all, Ms. Trump, Ms. First Lady of the United States for coming here and doing this. We're honored to be part of the program that recognizes the importance of creating opportunities for young people and helping them have a bright future in front of them. I also want to thank the LSU Foundation, President of the University for participating and getting involved in this, the donors who joined our commitment, and everyone whose partnership and support helped make this possible today. When people talk about opportunity, they often talk about hard work, determination, perseverance. All those things do matter. But over the years, we've learned that opportunity also depends a lot on something else. It depends on somebody opening a door, somebody believing in you, somebody giving you the opportunity to succeed. We all benefit from people who invest in us and encourage us and help us see the possibilities that are out there. That's why we at MMR, fostering the future endowed scholarship, was created through the LSU Foundation. And at MMR, we've always believed from day one, our greatest responsibility is investing in people. We're a people business. When we invest in people, we invest in the future. And that's exactly what this scholarship is designed to do. For the students that have experienced foster care, the path to higher education comes with a lot of challenges. Many are navigating college without support, yet they arrive with determination, resilience, and the desire to build a better life for themselves. Those are really good qualities, and we admire that. As an LSU graduate, former football player who missed maybe too many tackles, and a member of LSU's First CM program graduating class, I know firsthand how education and opportunity can change the course of a person's life. LSU, win or lose, helped shape who I am and probably who a lot of you are. The education that I got here, the lessons, some hard that I learned, and the people who invested in me in an important role, play an important role in my career for sure in a company we built over 35 years. So that's one of the reasons this scholarship is so important to me personally. It is an opportunity to help extend that same support to others. What's most exciting about this scholarship is that it isn't just helping students today, it's about helping students for generations to come. By creating an endowed scholarship program, we're establishing a permanent source of support that will continue opening doors and creating opportunities for the future. At MMR, we've always believed that our greatest legacy isn't measured by what we build, it's but by the people that we build along the way. Think about that. That belief reminds me actually to a book given to me by a former LSU athletic director, one that you probably fired. In it, the author reflects on how small actions can impact, have a lasting impact, writing that to each of us constantly, every decision constantly changes the world. Think about it. Who you marry, who you, where you grew up, where you went to school. Every decision impacts something for you in the future. So everything in life can be sustained or shaped by a single decision. You think about it, it's really true. An individual choosing to give back, a company choosing to invest in the next generation, and a student choosing to pursue the education. How that changes everything. So with that, I just want to end this, those decisions create opportunities, they open doors, they have the power to change the course of somebody's future. Today, through this scholarship, we hope to do exactly that. We're proud to play a role, a small role in the opportunities, and be grateful as a part of the initiative and this will make a difference in generations to come. Mrs. Trump, it is our honor that you would be here. We thank you very much. You have no idea the impact that you being here has on this. It's got all these people in the room here, they're out here for me, they're here for you. We know that. And we want to continue to do this. It's a big impact for the state. The governor's here, he knows it. We know it. Coach O is here. It's a big on LSU football program. It couldn't be a better time, a better place, and a better situation to do this. We thank all of you for coming. The donations we hope will continue to do exactly what we ask, control, or create opportunity for people's lives to get better here. Thank you guys very much. We're done. [applause] [no speech detected] [no speech detected] [no speech detected] [no speech detected] [no speech detected] Mrs. Trump, what I heard you say is that LSU has 14 scholarship recipients and Alabama has nine. So I think that means we've already won the first. [applause] Pepper, thank you for your leadership and generosity. You are a true friend to LSU and we are deeply proud to call you a tiger. [applause] And thank you for answering the phone when I called. Today we celebrate not only this new scholarship, but also the generosity it has inspired. Mrs. Trump. I don't get to say that every day, so I'm just gonna pause. Mrs. Trump, Pepper, and the MMR team. I am deeply honored to share with you that 75 LSU Foundation donors, many of whom are in this room today, were motivated to give an additional 2.2 million dollars to bring the fostering the future endowed scholarship at LSU to more than 7.2 million dollars and growing. [applause] [no speech detected] [no speech detected] [no speech detected] Together, your gifts will change the lives of students for generations to come. We are proud to celebrate your shared impact and your extraordinary dedication to LSU. As we close this special time together, I'd like to share a special thank you with the First Lady and Pepper. Pepper, I'm honored to let you know that yesterday we did what is the highest honor for an alum at LSU. We flew the American flag over the LSU parade ground in your honor, and we are sincerely looking forward to being able to give that to you and Miss Connie to treasure in your home. Thank you so much for your generosity. Mrs. Trump, we also have one final really neat gift to share with you. This one carries a very special piece of LSU with it. Nearly 100 years ago, LSU's landscape architect, the late Steel Burden, began carefully planting live oaks throughout our campus. Over the decades, those seedlings grew into the hundreds of stately oaks that are now inseparable from the beauty and character of LSU. This custom bowl was handcrafted by Moltrup Studios in Atlanta from the wood of a fallen limb of an iconic LSU oak. We chose this gift because its story feels especially fitting today. Just as these oaks were planted generations ago by someone who understood that their greatest impact would be realized far into the future. Fostering the future is planting opportunities whose impact will be felt for generations. We hope this will serve as a lasting reminder of your mark on the young people who will emerge from foster care equipped with an LSU education, go Tigers, and prepared to lead for a lifetime. To everyone who joined us today, thank you for celebrating this historic, extraordinary moment for the students and LSU. At this time, I'll invite our guests to depart via the shuttles we have waiting to take you over to the stadium. And finally, most importantly, go Tigers, go America, beat Miami!

Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.