East Room
2:40 P.M. EST
MRS. OBAMA: Thank you. (Applause.) Thanks so much. Well, good afternoon.
AUDIENCE: Good afternoon.
MRS. OBAMA: And welcome to the White House. It’s good to have you here. I am thrilled that all of you are here joining us today.
I want to start by thanking the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and all their work for sponsoring these awards each year. They’ve just done an amazing job. And I’d like to ask all of the members of the committee to please stand so that we can recognize you for all of your hard work. (Applause.) It’s a pretty impressive group.
I also want to specifically acknowledge -- I’m off my game. (Laughter.) I haven’t been -- I’ve been speaking a lot, and then sort of took a little time off -- but our committee co-chairs George Stevens and Margo Lion for all of their hard work. Thank you both. (Applause.) And we also have Jim Leach, Rocco Landesman, Susan Hildreth, Mary Schmidt Campbell; we have Minister Deng who is here, and our youth program speaker, Starr Arroyo who’s going to -- you’ll hear from Starr. (Applause.)
And I also want to thank Congressman Platts for joining us today. Where’s the Congressman? There you are. I walked right past you. Thank you so much for being here today. (Applause.)
And finally, I want to thank all of the educators, the artists, leaders, all of you who are working every day in communities all across this country to run the programs that we are going to recognize here today.
And every day, you all are doing the hard work. You are pushing and inspiring our kids. You’re revealing their boundless promise, and teaching them to believe in themselves. Because of the programs that you all run, young people are learning breakdancing, hip hop, African drumming -- a lot of stuff going on, right? -- a little traditional music. They’re putting on plays, publishing poems and articles, and working on museum exhibits. They’re becoming historians, designers and champion debaters. Yes. (Laughter.)
