FILE - In this May 16, 1994 file photo, former first lady Barbara Bush reads to a group of children at the Clinton Family Inn, a shelter run by Homes for the Homeless in New York. Promoting literacy was a longtime cause for Barbara Bush, who died Tuesday, April 17, 2018, at age 92. She met many authors during her time in Washington and in the years following. Sandra Brown, Mary Higgins Clark and Harlan Coben were among those who became good friends, and shared memories of a former first lady whom Brown said “put her heart and soul” into getting people to read while also being “very funny, very candid with her comments.” (AP Photo/Luc Novovitch, File)

Barbara Bush believed literacy could cure other ills

By Associated Press AP

PUBLISHED 1:39 PM ET May. 09, 2019

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Barbara Bush came up with the idea of focusing on literacy as first lady during a jog in 1978, the year her husband considered his first run for president.

While running, Bush realized that teaching more people to read could help decrease other major problems.

In March 1989, mere weeks after moving into the White House, she founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. It has since raised more than $110 million to create or support literacy programs for men, women and children nationwide.

The foundation doesn't have an exact count of how many people have benefited from programs it supported, but says it's "easily in the hundreds of thousands."

Bush remained active with the group until months before her death Tuesday, at age 92.