Nov05_133Jena Roscoe is no normal employee. In fact, Jena Roscoe is no normal, well, anything, nor anyone.

Jena Roscoe is a one person agency of positive, empowering change in the world – in Washington, D.C. even – and she is brilliant too. As Jena joins living legend and icon Ambassador Andrew Young and I here, following our first meeting with Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco in Baton Rouge, La. around Hurricane Katrina response work, she continues to serve not only as my central and trusted point of contact for all local, state and federal government leadership, tied to Project Restore HOPE and Katrina relief efforts, she is also one of my most trusted confidants and advisors, eriod. In short, she is good. Very good. Jena Roscoe is my chief of government relations for Operation HOPE.

I get a great deal of the credit for the work we do with government leaders, both domestically and increasingly around the world, with regard to a new approach of actually empowering the poor and the underserved, but the reality is that Jena has been at the forefront of many of Operation HOPE’s landmark partnerships with government leaders. I am glad to be able to now give her the credit she so warmly deserves.

Just some of her achievements as chief of government relations for HOPE include the important Harlem financial literacy partnership with former President Bill Clinton and his William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, the historic hosting of two U.S. Presidents by a non-profit organization ( former President Bill Clinton and sitting U.S. President George W. Bush) in one week in 2002, helping to cultivate our invaluable reputation for a bi-partisan, "honest broker" approach to public policy leadership and governmental interaction in our nation’s capitol, and states and cities throughout the nation, our efforts with the World Bank, a smash-hit opening on May 4th, 2005, of our historic HOPE Center in Anacostia-Washington, D.C., attended by more than 600 high-level governmental leaders from both sides of the political aisle, more than 100 partnerships with federal, state and local government entities, and countless other achievements, large and small, from the desk of one Jena Roscoe.

Jena opened our first ever government relations office after leaving the Clinton White House as the associate director of African-American outreach for the President, she has helped me and Operation HOPE to carve innovative new ground as an authentic and results oriented "silver rights" movement leadership organization, focused on actually "doing something" for people in the 21st century, and finally, she is a personal trusted advisor, a dedicated champion of HOPE, a competent member of our management team, and a dear, loved friend of my family.Oct05_152_1

Jena Roscoe, thank you for giving so much of you, for us. The best is yet to come.

Onward, with HOPE

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