Date: 08/27/2007

Event to Begin at Noon, Wednesday, August 29, at the San José Municipal Stadium

Contacts:
Pat Lopes Harris (408-924-1748)
Scott Myers-Lipton (510-508-5382)

Get event map and directions [PDF].
Get campus map and directions.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The Gulf Coast Civic Works Project -- a national effort founded at SJSU -- will lead a march through downtown San José on Wednesday, August 29, in commemoration of Hurricane Katrina's second anniversary. The march will begin at noon at the San José Municipal Stadium and end at 2 p.m. at the San José Civic Auditorium.

Stops will include Spartan Stadium, where SJSU Head Football Coach Dick Tomey will briefly address marchers, and the Smith Carlos Sculpture on San José State's campus, where two Katrina evacuees now living in the Bay Area will speak. Professor Scott Myers-Lipton, a national expert on solving poverty, and 10 student leaders spearhead the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project, which is gathering support for federal legislation to create 100,000 jobs for Katrina victims so they can rebuild their communities.

The project's model is the Works Progress Administration, which helped the nation recover from the Great Depression with a federally funded jobs program that resulted in the construction of many civic landmarks including the San José Municipal Stadium and San José Civic Auditorium. Tomey's remarks at Spartan Stadium will include his reflections on the WPA, which built stadiums across the country where his teams have played.

"By gathering at public work projects, we will remind the nation on the second anniversary of Katrina that there is an effective solution for the problems of the Gulf Coast," Myers-Lipton said. "The Gulf Coast still needs to rebuild homes, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, parks and forest lands. This is exactly what our public work projects have historically built." Read more.