Day 1: Wednesday

To recap the Day 1 Keynote Address as given by NUL President Marc Morial I would say: inspiring. It took 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to his address but I didn't notice until it was his turn. Sponsors were introduced, the Governor and Mayor of Florida and Orlando welcomed us along with a Nulite from the Orlando chapter. Marc Morial introduced a new program that 60 affiliate chapters will get the honor of running. It will be called
Restore our Homes and the chosen affiliates will open Homeowner Centers to aid their communities to get fixed affordable rate loans, strenghten advocacy in state governments, develop affordable housing and connect people with that housing. Marc Morial focused his address on the many effects of the housing crisis on our chapters and during the speech he quoted these statistics:

The US spends 275 million per day for the war.
1 month of no Iraq spending would:
fund No Child Left Behind
create 120,000 new units of housing
Fund Health insurance for 6 million children

2.5 days of n spending would:
Fund college for 463,000 children

The US spends 50 Billion per year on incarceration and 35 percent of those incarcerated are African American men.

1 month of prison money would:
Create 400 million summer jobs for our children
Create 100 million new schools to educate our children

Wow. I was shocked but not that suprised. We obviously have some work to do. Morial then noted the importance of the Volunteer Corp of the Urban League. The volunteer corp being the Guild and the Young Professional chapters. He has a mandate of sorts that by "...2012 every Urban League should have both." It is a mandate for the future he stated and we must grow our volunteers in order to effectively continue with our vision.

He left us all with this:

Will We Thrive?
Will We Own?
Will We Prosper?