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© St. Petersburg Times, published January 31, 2002
TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday announced plans to distribute $1.1-million in mentoring grants to Florida school districts.
The grants will provide $5,000 each to 191 schools. Bush announced the grants at a rally for more than 1,000 mentors and the children they mentor.
The money will provide $27,563 for Pinellas County, $47,313 for Hillsborough and $7,850 for Pasco.
Pat Moran, CEO of JM Family Enterprises and chairman of Take Stock in Children, a mentoring program started by Bush, also announced that the program has collected more than $35-million for college and vocational school scholarships for 6,000 students.
Moran also honored Bush as the state's "Mentor of the Year." The governor meets weekly with Burgess Brown, a Tallahassee middle school student.
Wednesday, Bush said Brown needed to learn how to find the area of a parallelogram. "Burgess didn't know how and to be honest I didn't know how," Bush admitted. "The first teacher we asked didn't know either, so we formed a team and found the answer."