President George W. Bush, in comments . . .

made at a Leadership Conference on Monday, mentioned one of my clients in Miami. Jim Touhy, the Office of Faith-based and Community-Based Initiatives, visited Peacemaker Family Center at the end of January, the week before I was there in February. This is what the president said about them . . .

"Let me give you an example. The Peacemaker Family Center in Miami is a small ministry of the Trinity Church that helps low-income and unemployed families. Touhy visited there, so he's telling me on the way over, in the limousine, that this is a desperate part of Miami, that this program is in a desperate part of Miami. And, yet, in the midst of desperation is a little beacon, a light. And so the center received a $50,000 -- seed money, it's called, from the Compassion Capital Fund Mini-Grant program. It's the first federal funding the organization had ever received."

You can read all of his comments at the White House's web site in News and Policies It's a long speech. MEDA and the program that I manage works with 40 organizations in Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Indianapolis, Central and Western Pennsylvania, and Peoria, IL. I work with the client organizations in all the geographies except Pennsylvania.