Marc Morial

We're not going to have this underperforming, lackadaisical system.

And then I said, we're going to invest in youth.

So that first summer I took office in May, put together 40 summer camps, put together 3,000 summer jobs for youth.

And I told every agency in the government, you all are going to contribute to this summer jobs program.

Nobody can have their own little program.

And I'm going to have a lottery.

to pick the participants.

I got no politics in this.

And I had a big lottery, and I got some of the Saints football players to come out and pick the numbers out of the hat.

So I wanted to change the system in terms of how you did, how you got involved.

You don't have to know somebody, right?

You basically, you know, this is, and I divided up the slots by councilmanic districts.

We had five, but it set the template

for investing in youth.

We invested in midnight basketball.

We invested in starlight basketball, which was for girls.

We learned when we brought all the young people together that the recreation department did not have any programs for girls, nothing really.

So we hired a women's athletic director and created a whole set of programming for girls.

You know, we were just, you know, I was the kind of person kind of, you know, if we talked, I said, look, give me some ideas.

And if people came up with a good idea, I'm like, let's go do it.