Sen. Carper’s Sussex County Schedule for Thursday, January 12, 2006

Georgetown, DE – Senator Tom Carper will spend Thursday, January 12, 2006, in Sussex County. Senator Carper will begin his day with a visit to Sussex Central Middle School to celebrate National Mentoring Month. He will meet with mentors at the school to discuss their mentoring experience and to thank them for volunteering. The mentoring program at Sussex Central Middle School is part of Mentor Delaware, a partnership between the Delaware Mentoring Council, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Delaware, Creative Mentoring, and the Indian River School District. The program is funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and is in the pilot program stage. The Senator himself has served as a mentor, mentoring the same young man for over 8 years. As Governor, Carper helped recruit thousands of mentors as part of the Creative Mentoring program and was actively involved in recruiting individuals and corporations to mentor Delaware’s at-risk children. Senator Carper will then deliver a speech and participate in Q&A at Delaware Technical and Community College in Georgetown about his trip to the Middle East. The Senator returned Saturday, December 3, 2005, from a week-long trip to Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia as part of a congressional delegation fact-finding mission. During the trip, the Senator met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, Dr. Salam Fayyad, finance minister for the Palestinian Authority, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Prime Minister Adnan Badran, and Iraqi military and government officials, and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz and Crown Prince Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz. Senator Carper will speak about his trip and then participate in student and media Q&A. The Senator will speak about his meetings, the war in Iraq, and what he learned about the peace process in the Middle East. The Senator’s will then head to Georgetown Elementary, where he will visit with the classes of Project V.I.L.L.A.G.E., an innovative early childhood program. The program provides a comprehensive, quality early childhood educational program for economically challenged 3 and 4 year-olds in the underserved Selbyville, Frankford, Millsboro and Georgetown areas. A prime target of the program is the area’s growing number of Hispanic children. These children become acclimated to the English language and to the school routine through the program’s language-rich academic readiness and social experiences. Thus, these children are enable to enter kindergarten as “ready to learn” as their English-speaking counterparts. During the 2005-2006 school year, Project V.I.L.L.A.G.E. served approximately 200 students. English is not the first language for more than half of the program’s participants. Senator Carper will then go to Allens Poultry Office in Seaford, where he will be briefed on how the National Poultry Testing Program for avian influenza works. He will then proceed to Lloyd’s farm to see first hand how the testing is done. The U.S. commercial chicken industry announced last week a testing program to ensure that chicken flocks and the food products made from them are free of potentially hazardous forms of avian influenza. Under the program, chicken farmers, most of whom raise flocks under contract with major processors, will take swabs or beak samples from eleven chickens in each healthy flock. Any suspicious results found in local laboratories will be sent on to a USDA laboratory for confirmation. Some 1.6 million birds will be tested per year under this program. The four major chicken producers on the Delmarva Peninsula, Allen, Perdue, Mountaire, and Tyson, have already started participating in this program. Thursday, January 12, 2006

• 10:30 am – 11:30 am
  National Mentoring Month Event
  Sussex Central Middle School
  302 East State Street
  Millsboro
  
• 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm
  Speech and Q&A about trip to the Middle East
  Delaware Technical and Community College
  Owens Campus
  Seashore Highway (Route 18)
  Georgetown
  
• 1:35 pm- 2:10 pm
  Visit with classes of Project V.I.L.L.A.G.E.
  Georgetown Elementary
  301A West Market Street
  Georgetown
  
• 2:30pm- 3:30pm
  Observe National Poultry Testing Program
  Allens Poultry Office*
  126 North Shipley Street
  Seaford
  *Members of the media are asked to meet at the Allens’ Office at 2:30pm. We will depart from there for the farm.