Remarks at the Kickoff of the Presidents' Summit for America's Future in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The President. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning!

Audience members. Good morning!

The President. Are you ready to go to work?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. Are you warmed up?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. Have you heard all the speeches you want to hear?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. I want to just say—let me say, first of all, how grateful I am to be here with all the people who have made this possible and with all of you. I thank the people of Philadelphia for being so good to me since 1992 and for being my friends and for giving me a chance to work with you to bring Philadelphia back. Thank you so much. I thank all your officials. I thank your wonderful Mayor.

General Powell told me when he retired from the United States Army as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the one thing he wanted to do more than anything else was to find a way to give every child in this country a chance at a good future, and I thank him for doing that.

I thank Colin and Alma. I thank George and Barbara Bush for their examples, Mrs. Bush with her literacy program, President Bush for A Thousand Points of Light. I thank President and Mrs. Carter for caring about the children of this country, for the work they've done with Habitat for Humanity and for going all over the world to rid the children of the world of dread diseases, to give them food to eat and a decent, humane place to grow up in. I thank all of you.

But let's face it—I want everybody to face it. Why are we here? We know that a lot of us would be doing a lot of this anyway. There are a lot of wonderful volunteers in America. Here's why we're here. This country has produced a lot of jobs in the last 4 years. The crime rate is going down; the welfare rolls are going down. But we're still losing too many kids to crime, to drugs, to not having a decent income in their home, and to not having a bright future. And we're here because we don't think we have to put up with it, and we believe together we can change it. Isn't that right? [Applause]

I'm here because I want the young people out here to grow up in an America that is even greater than the America I grew up in. That is the eternal dream and promise, and every one of you deserves that. I'm here because, frankly, I believe that as children of God, we can never fulfill our own ambitions until we help our brothers and sisters to fulfill theirs.

I'm here because I want to redefine the meaning of citizenship in America. I want the children here, starting next week, and all over America—if you're asked in school, what does it mean to be a good citizen, I want the answer to be, "Well, to be a good citizen, you have to obey the law. You've got to go to work or be in school. You've got to pay your taxes, and, oh, yes, you have to serve in your community to help make it a better place."

And General Powell, since we're going to keep this going and we all have to make an account of ourselves, I'll go first. Here's my commitment to you and your project.

In the next 4 years, the Department of Defense will mentor, tutor, and teach one million children. In the next 4 years, the Department of Transportation and the private businesses who work with them will do that for one million more. We will adopt a total of 2,000 schools in the Federal agencies of this country. We will find one million reading tutors in the America Reads program, to make sure every child can read independently by the third grade. And our AmeriCorps volunteers will go across this country to recruit at least a dozen more volunteers for every one of them, to make sure that all of the items on your agenda succeed. That is our commitment.

Are you ready to keep your commitment?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. After today is over, do you promise to keep working tomorrow?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. And next year?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. And the year after that?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. Until the job is done?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. I promise. Say it!

Audience members. I promise!

The President. Let's go to work.

God bless you.